


More's the Damn Pity

by angelplates (pelinal)



Series: The Song of Divine Safiya the Nine-Fingered [1]
Category: Divinity: Original Sin (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bisexual Female Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, Diary/Journal, F/M, Multi, Oral Sex, POV First Person, Vaginal Sex, edit: went back and fixed some fucked up formatting, most of it is pretty vanilla. i guess theres some very faint femdom echoes on day 49?, neither of these people are all that great but they do love each other so. whatever that's worth, thank fucking god this absolute disaster can stop living in my head rent free. thank god., this isn't a fix for trp's ingame romance btw. definitely still cheating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 103,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25197259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelinal/pseuds/angelplates
Summary: I pulled on my scuffed boots as I watched him dress. His shirt had very clearly been meant for a farmer, or a labourer, anyway: an unseamed square of linen, stitched simply along the sides. His greaves were tarnished and still had bits of blood-rust in their hollows, despite his best efforts. And his poor sword, which he sheathed on his back now for the first time in weeks, had been in bad shape from the very beginning. He cleaned it carefully every other day—so it sparkled—but it was missing a few chips, and the bronze haft was blackened, except where the grip of his hands had burnished it back to a butter-yellow colour."You look good," I said. It was true.[3/3/2021: fixed some errors of style, one undue instance of "grinned" and a lot of annoying dialogue]
Relationships: Female Godwoken/The Red Prince, The Red Prince/Sadha, past Female Godwoken/OC
Series: The Song of Divine Safiya the Nine-Fingered [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860325
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. Day 1

Dear Ulara:  
  


So the Magisters got me, I suppose. I wish I'd gone with you when you went. I'm alone on a ship full of crazies and murderers. You don't think we were the _only_ sane Sourcerers?  
  


Was it like this for you? The collars? Walking us up the boards in queues, all bound to each other? They put us in these horrid itchy clothes that stank of mould—AND they put me behind this very ornery lizard, he kept trying to direct the line himself from his spot in the middle. He had a nice voice, though. Rich. Not in the least gritty—or clicky—you know? Stuck-up too, poncy, like the voice Jae would put on when you did an old-timey piece. His Braccus voice, exactly that.  
  


I woke up on something like a torture rack and. . .nearly wet myself, and then I realised I was choking on something, and some Magister hag came up and gave me an earful for no reason and told me to 'enjoy the collar' before she let me down. I've never really thought about it before, but you have got to be kind of a sadist to be a Magister, haven't you?  
  


Anyway. I went up to the middle deck and: crazies, wall to wall. There was a Mezdi though—here, imagine! Well, sort of. I'll get to it.  
  


I met an elf woman—gorgeous, very scary—who licked my arm and told me I was thinking of someone special last night. That's true enough; I was thinking of you. But then I thought 'that's a very general thing to say, isn't it? That could apply to anyone.' And I dared to say it, and then she nipped my finger and told me that I still hold myself responsible for what happened to my mother. That still could have been a lucky guess, but it hurt enough that I just left her to it.   
  


So the Mezdi-who's-sort-of-Mezdi-and-sort-of-not—some guy who beckoned me over and tipped my collar so I didn't feel quite as choked. "Ifan ben-Mezd," he said, and I got excited and started speaking Mezdi and he looked just a bit like a startled rabbit.  
  


Ben-Mezd is a funny name, anyway, "son of Mezd". It's like you calling yourself "Ulara, daughter of Rivellon". What's the point? Where are your parents? There's no use to it, unless you're an orphan and you need papers.  
  


As it turns out, he grew up here in the south, among elves. "Ifan" is elven, I suppose. Is it elven? I introduced myself as "Safiya. . .bin-Arx" (because I'm a shit). He gave me sort of a befuddled smile. Serves me right for thinking I'm funny.  
  


Then—I don't know. Some ill-tempered elf buried in a book, some dwarf who was more beard than flesh, and Lohse was there! I was trying to think where I knew her from, and I think she did Mairi in your production of Blood-Red Roses forever ago? Because she was the only one within a mile who could sing! She's soared since then, though. Also she's been possessed by a demon. I hope that's not a Sourcerer thing, but it must be, mustn't it?  
  


Speaking of blood-red though. . .are you ready? On the head of the Divine I wish you were here to see for yourself. That ornery lizard who was ahead of me when we got on the ship—I didn't notice or I wasn't paying attention at first—but he's the Red Prince. The crown prince of the Ancient Empire. And he's a bit of a prick! I found him scolding some poor cook for not serving him a thousand-course meal—he can't honestly expect that sort of thing on a prison ship? Can he? I've never met a monarch before. Do you think they're all like this?  
  


I think he's either a very good actor or utterly off his rocker. He tried to get me to be his slave—Now. I can kiss up to authority just fine if it saves me any trouble, but I couldn't believe he was being serious. I laughed in his face—I mean when I really laugh, _really_ laugh. I started sobbing, I was laughing so hard. I couldn't help it! I was strung like a bow all day and he goes and says a thing like that in his voice like the Source King!  
  


He very swiftly rescinded his offer ("offer"), and somehow I came out of it feeling like _I_ was the mad one for refusing.  
  


Ula, I'm terrified of the Joy. If it's full of Magisters like the one who put the collar on me, I think I might die before I even get the chance to be cured. I can't believe you put yourself on a ship like this out of your own free will. Did you have many regrets? Counting the seconds in a smelly dark deck like this one?  
  


I hope I see you. I hope you're OK.   
  


Yours,  
Safi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit i can't believe i finished this thing! a few tidbits at this point:  
> -the journal format (ie the fact that saf has to actively write something down for it to appear in the narrative) plays into the way the story is told, at least a little bit. she leaves things out sometimes, or embellishes things..  
> -i try to go over canon events as quickly as possible (i also use basically none of the canon dialogue) just because like....we've all seen it before lmao. so i'll usually be brief about like. battles or super basic plot events. for the sake of not retreading old ground yk?


	2. Day 5 (I think. They don't let us on the bloody top deck so I can't see the sky but I gave it my best guess)

Ulara!  
  


It occurs to me that I've never actually traveled by boat before! At least—nothing more binding than a ferry. I can feel it though. I have been sick as a dog for _so long_ , and I feel like I'm the only one. Even the children have better sea-legs than I do. What's that say about me?  
  


They don't let me mope around the sleeping quarters either, they think I'm plotting something. (Tell me: what in the bloody, bloody Void am I plotting a million miles out at sea, with a Source collar on, and no possessions WHATEVER except a ratty old logbook I pinched from a crate?)  
  


So I have to spend my days up on the middle deck with the constant noise in my ears, trying not to be sick again. Today—fingers crossed—is actually looking like my first vomit-free day! I'm as relieved as everyone else. They make you clean it up yourself.  
  


Anyway the time I don't spend tossing my meals, I try and socialise. Lots of people want to talk, oddly enough. I suppose it keeps their minds off the Joy. Lohse still remembers her solo from BRR, she says, but she won't sing it—she tried, but it's like someone's hand, the demon's hand is choking out the sound. I worry for her. And I worry for us, if we have to be here much longer, and she snaps?  
  


Ifan has been after me to teach him bits of Mezdi—and—well—I love his spirit. But it doesn't seem to stick, any of it. His pronunciation is fine though. I think it's funny—he does the same thing you do—elves do, in Common—he doesn't change the verb at all, ever. "Last week I go to the market".   
  


What else is funny: he used to be one of Lucian's commanders. And now he's here. Something in between, obviously. He joined up with mercenaries. It made me think—it's not really polite to ask—how many of these lunatics are here because they've killed people? I don't know if I'd know. You'd think you could recognise a killer if you saw one, right? But then an army commander must have killed people. Probably loads of people. I don't know what to do with that. Bit weird running vocabulary with a potential murderer. But it is what it is.  
  


No one "loses control" of Source really? Right? Except Lohse, but then she had a demon. Most of us don't have demons. It's like having a birthmark, and if the Magisters see the spot on your shoulder, it's off to the holding cells. So what? Is it too much power? I don't know, I don't care. I should have done this forever ago. They can have my Source for all I care, and then you and I can get back to Arx.  
  


Do you know what? I had all these Source worries and I got to thinking of something else. I steeled my spine and found the Red Prince and—terribly impolite—I asked him why he was in here.  
  


Because—in my defence—you always hear about how all lizards use Source, right? I thought it probably wasn't ALL of them, but enough that, I think, the Order would have no reason to pick up a lizard Sourcerer, unless I suppose they were living here in the East and being very, very obvious about it.  
  


The first thing he did was remind me that he hadn't given me permission to approach him. "But," he said, "you have, in one fell swoop, trampled any extant precepts of etiquette—and, I should add, _hierarchy_ —such that I barely know where to begin my reprimand."  
  


"Sorry," I said. "I'll stop imposing."  
  


"Stay. At least until your marginal entertainment value sours, which I don't predict will take too long."  
  


I frowned, bristling, but I stayed.  
  


He ignored me entirely and beckoned the poor cook he'd been haranguing earlier. She came, deferential, tossing her head this way and that like an edgy horse. She was very eager to speak, but she wouldn't, not unless she was told to. (I expect the Prince called her over to show me firsthand how he expected to be treated. Self-important bastard.)  
  


"I have a question for you," he told her at last. "Nothing complicated. A _lay-out_ , really, as they say in this lumpish human tongue."  
  


"Lay-up," I corrected him, without really thinking about it. The cook cringed, as it seemed, on my behalf.  
  


"Pray," he barrelled on, still searing the cook through with his flaming eyes, "why was the Red Prince taken captive?"  
  


The cook blinked, the nictitating membranes of her eyes quivering as her gaze flitted about the room. "M-my lord?"  
  


"Oh, come. All the Empire must know by now. There is no trick on my part," he added, in a tone that was nearly gentle—well— _coaxing_ is the word, "I simply find myself unwilling to relate the story yet again. A hundredfold is my exasperation if I must address a member of the slave races."   
  


I supposed that was a jab at me. I couldn't even be offended, I was just stunned what a mess I'd landed in.  
  


"I only know what I've heard," the cook said in a trembling voice. "Forgive me, my prince."  
  


"What have you heard, sister?"  
  


 _Sister_ seemed to do it. "W-well," she havered, "as the rumour goes—and this is all rumour—my lord stands accused of—of—of—consorting with. . .demons. . ." I guessed by the way she said it that the Empire doesn't like demons any more than we do.  
  


"Ah," said the Red Prince, turning briefly to me and raising one of his shoulders, _there you have it_. "That will be all."  
  


The cook bowed out without another word, and didn't return to her stall. Maybe she went down to the cabin to collect her starstruck self.  
  


We stood there for a while, entrenched in a silence that would have been unbearable if not for the waves and the chatter around us.

  
"And?" he demanded at last.  
  


"You haven't given me leave to speak," I said, smiling a little.  
  


"Well—" he said, and I want to think he was just a little taken aback, "—hereby granted. And?"  
  


"And what?" I asked. "Why does the Red Prince give a fiddlecrab's little claw about the opinion of a human?"  
  


I watched him frown and start to mouth 'fiddlecrab's little. . .'   
  


"It's, er, not a local expression," I said. "Fiddlecrabs—you mostly get fiddlecrabs in Mezd, on the banks of the Great River. That's where it comes from."  
  


"Quaint," he decided. "That dogged recalcitrance isn't a fraction as charming as you think it is."  
  


"I just don't think it matters what I say. If I tell you demons are bad news, that's only a human speaking, isn't it?"  
  


"Humans are a presumptuous sort," he flared, "if they intend to lecture me as concerns my own thoughts."  
  


"Right," I said. "Cowardly. . .narrow-minded. . ."  
  


"Hm. Since you suggest the epithets yourself."  
  


"But then, what if I said, you know, 'good on you, sire! No demon—'" I paused to think. "'—no demon is your equal! May the sun never set on the Ancient Empire!'"  
  


"You'd be right in all respects, of course," said the Red Prince, puffing out his chest, "but I would also take you for a spineless toady."  
  


"Yes! A doormat!"  
  


"A sycophant."  
  


I grinned. "A lackey!"   
  


"A lickspittle."  
  


"A handshaker!"  
  


"A groveler."  
  


". . .a slave," I said, and bit my lip.  
  


He rolled his eyes. "Spare me."  
  


The thought that I was, in fact, swapping synonyms with a slaver seemed to knock me about the head. I cleared my throat. "In any case, I don't think I have near enough information to form an opinion—even if I wanted to."  
  


"Sensible." He crossed his arms. "What intelligence are you lacking, then?"  
  


Neither of us touched the obvious joke.  
  


I cleared my throat. "I don't know. Your. . .motivation, I suppose? For 'consorting' with demons. And I'd ask you to clarify about 'consorting'," I added, willing myself not to blush. "And about who was hurt in the process, if anyone, and why. . .and, er. . .what was the risk. And why they would ever arrest their crown prince. There's probably more that won't come to me right now."  
  


"Hm. Respectively: boredom. Acts of intimacy, up to and including coitus. Nothing and no one, save. . .to the end of pleasure. Disaster and devastation, perhaps, if not for my extraordinary mental and physical faculties. Political expediency."  
  


"Coitus?" I parroted. "With demons?"  
  


"Only the one—but on countless occasions. Each more memorable than the last." He fixed me with the most insufferably smug look, as though he had finally touched on something that offended my delicate human sensibilities.  
  


"Just seems like a silly risk. I don't think it's narrow-minded of me to say that. I mean—you— _you_ — _you're_ the Red Prince, you could point at almost anyone in the Ancient Empire, and they'd come to you, r—am I wrong?"  
  


"Not in the slightest. Hence my insupportable boredom."  
  


"Ah," I said. "So I suppose. . .I suppose it's all low-hanging fruit from your vantage point."  
  


"A pragmatic, if shockingly lacklustre view."  
  


I shrugged. "I just don't think that's the thing you should have been arrested for."  
  


"Oh, no?"  
  


"But then if they cared about my opinion, the entire House of War would come down with you, so. . ."  
  


Now his hand was around my throat, above the collar, and his claws dug into the sides of my neck. "Thus far I've decided to humour you—prating, as you do, far above your station—but what I will not tolerate, even in this watery, malodorous pit, is the malignation of my house and homeland. And from one of the _lesser races_ , at that. . ." He tightened his grip for a moment, and I thought he would lift me clear off the floor. Instead he glanced aside at something, looked back and flung me to the ground (I'm not proud to say I took the fall pretty hard), and spat: "If you should somewhere find the _gall_ to _pester_ me for a second time, I shall be less pleasant by far."  
  


I opened my mouth to say something calm and dignified before I walked calmly away—but I didn't say anything, only gasped for breath. And I didn't walk away—I slunk. I tried hard not to slink, I could _tell_ myself that I didn't slink, but—you know—I slunk.  
  


I wasn't going anywhere in particular, just _away_ , but I realised that I had to write to you about this, and I looked for my beaten-up little book, but I couldn't find it. I went instead for a corner, stacked with crates behind which I could sit and pretend that I didn't exist for a bit. I heard footsteps—human footsteps, thank Lucian.  
  


" _Ahal_ ," said Ifan, taking a seat nearby.  
  


I smiled a little, just to let him know I appreciated the Mezdi greeting. "Hi."  
  


"This yours?" he asked, brandishing my logbook. "I didn't read it—least—I skimmed it until I saw your name."  
  


"It's fine," I half-shrugged. "There's nothing horrible in there. After today, there might be, but not right now." Then I remembered that I had, in writing, called him a murderer, and I searched his face to see whether he had read _that._   
  


He cast a glance in the direction of the Red Prince and grinned, flashing his filed teeth at me, but said nothing otherwise. "Are you writing to someone?"  
  


"Ulara. My. . .she turned herself in a while ago. She must be in Fort Joy right now, I—I'm hoping to find her there."  
  


"Hoping for a happy reunion?"  
  


I bit my cheek. "More than anything else in the world. I hear. . .I don't hear good things about the Joy. Do your teeth ever hurt?"  
  


"What?" He burst out with a surprised guffaw. "My _teeth?_ "  
  


"I thought they might be sensitive. Since. . .they're filed just a little, aren't they?"  
  


"'S fine, mostly. Drinking ice water, though, is a sport in itself among the Lone Wolves."  
  


"Ow," I said, imagining the feeling.  
  


"'Ow' is about right. But," he nudged my shoulder with his, "your little encounter with the prince?"  
  


"Did you hear that?"  
  


He scratched his nose idly. "Was chatting up a dwarf fellow until his shouting caught my ear, and then I looked over and suddenly he was strangling the daylights out of you. How did that happen?"  
  


"You just watched?" I asked, surprised by my own hurt.  
  


"I—I think he dropped you because he saw me get up. I kept an eye after that, but I didn't think you wanted me fussing in front of everyone."  
  


"I s'pose not. Thank you for having my back." There was a short silence. "I'm being serious, ben-Mezd."  
  


"OK, OK. You sounded so—"  
  


"No, I meant—"  
  


"Well, you're welcome." He shrugged. "You had ought to sound more honest when you thank people."  
  


"If I could just do that," I said, "I'd be an actor, and not a Sourcerer."  
  


"You'd. . .still be a Sourcerer."  
  


"There's no talking to you." I felt my smile fall a little ways. "We got onto the topic of slavery, which is always awkward with a lizard, I reckon, but let alone the prince of the House of War?"  
  


"The H— _that's_ him?" asked Ifan, craning his neck. "The bloody House of War."  
  


"Do you know anyone who was—?" I trailed off.   
  
  
"No," he mumbled. "Friends of friends. No one in my clan left to take after the Deathfog. Happy accident, I guess."

"What's murder, then?" I asked. "What War does is horrific, but then what's murder?"  
  


Ifan blinked. "What's. . ." When he realised what I was getting at, he frowned at me. "You're trying to compare us?"  
  


"No," I said. "I don't think I am, anyway. But if you can justify murder. . ."  
  


"I don't justify anything," he insisted. "I live with it. 's all you can do."  
  


"OK," I said.  
  


"You don't want to be so quick to speak for other people, Safiya. Not when you haven't walked a mile in their shoes."  
  


I thought there might be more miles in his shoes than I wanted to walk, but I said nothing. "Sorry."  
  


"Would you rather be dead," he demanded, "or a slave for life? I'd die a thousand times before I gave up my freedom."  
  


I thought about it. "I think I'd do myself in if they took me."  
  


He put a finger to his temple. "My point." And then I think we both thought of the fact that we were for all intents on a slave ship, and we thought of the Joy, and we didn't feel very much like talking anymore.  
  


Murderers and crazies, like I said, Ula. I hope you're doing well. I pray that you are, so for whatever that's worth. I'm getting these little teardrop bruises on my neck from clawed fingertips.  
  


I'm going to try and get a little sleep.

With all my love,  
Safiya


	3. Day 7 (I think)

Dear Ulara,  
  


holy shit.  
  


Thank the fucking gods I found another book. I'd blow up if I couldn't write all this down. We got shipwrecked. And we got to the Joy. And you're not here that I've seen.  
  


At a certain point the Magisters realised I wasn't in the registry and I got carted off to some other floor of the ship to get that squared away and there was this mad Sourcerer woman who just. . .took the collar off her neck and chucked it and then _exploded the ship. With Source._ Do you know what happens when people use a big fucking load of Source? Obviously you do, you turned yourself in. So I went out cold and woke up to this absolute hell of screaming and _Voidwoken_ and something cloudy that turned out to be Deathfog. _(Deathfog?)_  
  


You know me—city girl. Cathedral rat. I can't swing a sword. But I bet you'd be proud of me for this one—I scooped up a broom from somewhere and kept the Voidwoken off me with that. And I held my shirt over my mouth against the Deathfog, but my lungs still burn.  
  


So somehow I made it to the top deck; the lifeboat was nearly empty, just a little girl and a dwarf. I was bloody well about to board, too, but then the kid insisted there were still people on the lower deck—and I remembered that we weren't the only three people on the ship. And then I thought of Lohse and Ifan and—I thought, not, what if they die, but what if they somehow _survive_ and then find out I just fucked off with the only lifeboat? And then I saw them again? I'd have to off myself.  
  


So down I toddled again with my broomstick in hand and my shirt pulled up over my mouth against the Deathfog _(the Deathfog!)_ , and I saw all the rest of the Sourcerers fighting off the Voidwoken, looking very much like they hadn't needed my help at all. I did knock one away from the dwarf with the big beard, which felt good. He winked at me (I think. He wears an eyepatch) and then everything was dark and black and I couldn't breathe. I opened my eyes, and the salt stung them. I was in the wreckage of the ship and the surface, its perfect bright blue, was going away from me. I felt calm. I felt a whole lot of bubbles crowding their way past my lips. Dully, probably dying, I thought, (me the amateur Hydrosophist), how funny would it be if I made a _really big_ bubble just like that? And I did, and it was around my head, good for one great gulp of air. It was enough. I came to my senses, I panicked harder than I've ever panicked and swam for the surface like a frantic fish and I broke the surface and took the sweetest breaths of my life. I took a moment and floated and cried away the shock and then I started, slowly, blundering towards the shore. I was still half-convinced I'd die of exhaustion before I ever got there, but I remember lying on the sand, fine warm floury sand, and thinking "holy shit". And then I passed out.  
  


I woke up in the early night. I spat out what felt like a dead crab, and stared into the sky, because I was too exhausted to move.   
  


"Hm," said someone. I couldn't even turn my head to look, but I knew. "I was under the distinct impression that yours would be the slumber of death, by and by."  
  


"I can't move," I said.  
  


"How terribly unfortunate," drawled the Red Prince. "I took the liberty of moving you far enough inland that the tide wouldn't drown you, which, considering your previous remarks about my home and family, is more than you deserve."  
  


I was only awake enough to process maybe one word for every three that he said, but I understood that he wasn't going to be any help. "You're leaving?"  
  


"I see no point in waiting for the Order to come and find me, as they inevitably will, now that the other bedraggled strays have crawled in."  
  


"Is everyone alive?"  
  


"I haven't an inkling," he said. "Nor, come to think of it, a care."  
  


"Well, when you're in the Joy," I said, loudly and deliberately, forcing my numb lips to make the sounds I wanted, "if you run into Ifan, will you tell him where I am?"  
  


If he said anything after that, I didn't hear it. I was asleep again, drifting off as a small bird perched on my forehead. I woke up again on top of a bedroll, drier and warmer than I remembered being.  
  


"Don't sit up," someone warned. "Think you banged your head pretty good."  
  


I cracked one eye, and the light of day was blinding. "Ifan?"  
  


"That's me."  
  


"Are you OK?"  
  


"I'm fine," he said, sounding like he was grinning. "I should ask you that. Coming to save the day with a mop in hand."  
  


I chuckled a little, but it felt like my skull was being skewered when I did, so I stopped. "I got one of them."  
  


"Good effort." He laughed; not cruelly.  
  


"Did you all get to the lifeboat?" I asked.  
  


"No, we. . .no."   
  


"Oh."  
  


Ifan sighed. "What do you remember?"  
  


"Darkness," I said honestly, "and water, and bubbles, and lying on the beach."  
  


"You didn't. . .hear anything—see anything strange?"  
  


"No."  
  


"Huh," he said, and muttered something under his breath.  
  


"What did you hear?"  
  


"Maybe I'll let you know later," he said dismissively, and, peering beneath half-cracked eyelids, I caught the spatters of blood on his face.  
  


"Are you OK?" I asked again. "You're bloody."  
  


"I am bloody," said Ifan, watching me with a faint, hard-to-place amusement. "Scuffle earlier. 'S not my blood."  
  


"Oh."  
  


"I'm going to see if I can scrounge us up something to eat. Stay put, all right? There's a skin of water to your side, behind the old chest."  
  


"OK," I said, taking his word for it; it hurt to lift my head. "Thank you."  
  


"Eh?"  
  


"For taking care of me. And for bringing me in from the beach."  
  


He threw me another smile that was difficult to read—I didn't know if I was just that concussed or he had suddenly become much more guarded—and took off.  
  


So a few hours went by while I was dozing, listening to the sounds around me—a little laughter, lots of wailing, I think there was a couple having a shag on top of a nearby building—and the sun got hotter. Eventually I propped myself up on my elbow and, with a head like an anvil, I felt around for the water skin. Then, when I had had something to drink, I sat up. And then it occurred to me that my logbook must have been lost with the ship, but I found another, bigger, yellow and with copper corners. I hope no one comes to ask for it back.   
  


(This one is taking so long to write, the letters swim as I put them down, but I didn't want to just lie here like a corpse.)  
  


Later on Ifan came back—he'd "scrounged up" two smallish fish, red and with long fins, and one sizeable potato. I had the task of filling the piece-of-shit pewter pot with seawater while he made a fire. It felt good to walk. (I was horribly dizzy and I stepped on a shell and came back trailing blood, but still.) Ifan's not a bad cook, as it turns out, and before I knew it the fish and the lone potato, chopped into little blocks and bubbling over the low fire, had all the look and smell of a decent stew. I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep down solid food, but I was willing to try, and so far I have. (Keep hoping for me.)  
  


As we ate, we talked about Fort Joy. About the people here, about the Magisters. . .I asked if he'd seen anyone like you around, but no. (Which makes me wonder: where are you? And are you OK?)  
  


"We can't stay here forever," he said eventually. "Least—I can't."  
  


"I'd love to find Ulara and just go back to Arx," I said. "But I can't find her and they obviously don't want us escaping, so: shite."  
  


Ifan picked a small sharp fish rib from his bowl and worked it between his teeth. "Doesn't matter what they want. The only question is, do you want out or not?"  
  


"Not _yet_ , no."  
  


He looked at me, baffled. "Not _yet?"  
  
_

"I have to. . .get cured of Source, so I can go back to Arx."  
  


"Do you really think that's what's happening here? People are disappearing by the day and getting cured?"  
  


I hesitated. "What _is_ happening, according to you?"  
  


"You see what happened to that lizard outside?"  
  


"I haven't been to. . ."  
  


Ifan set aside the bowls, stood up and beckoned for me to come with him. My head still felt heavy, but I was OK.   
  


The smell hit me long before we caught sight of the lizard woman's remains: like shit and rot and honey (it's hard to explain). We passed the gates, and under the wary eyes of two Magister guards, Ifan pointed out to me a large spattered puddle of blood and fluids, inlaid with pieces of intestine and stark fragments of bone. A chunk of flesh caught my eye, because the scaly skin was still on it, and it glittered blue in the dwindling daylight.  
  


"That—" Ifan began, but he caught sight of the looks on the Magister's faces (and probably mine, since I was on the point of sobbing or throwing up and I didn't know which it was going to be) and brought me back to our little tent-contraption near the square. "That," he said when we were out of anyone's earshot, "far as I can tell, is what happens when you take all of someone's Source. So I think I want to hang on to mine."  
  


I didn't say anything. I was trying to breathe.  
  


"Hey." He put his hand on my shoulder. "If we fight our way out, you'll see worse. Probably do worse."  
  


"What—" I laughed shakily and wiped my face with my sleeve, "what sort of fucking comfort is that supposed to be?"  
  


"It's not. Let me ask you again: do you want out?"  
  


"Well—"  
  


"Yes or no?"  
  


I huffed. "Yes, _but_ —"  
  


"Then we're agreed. You run with me."  
  


" _How_ do you see that working out?"  
  


He shrugged. "Violently."  
  


"Don't take me, ben-Mezd. Swatting things with a broom is honestly the best I can do."  
  


"I'll keep you out of trouble. And if you have to swat, swat hard." He winked.  
  


". . .I don't know."  
  


"Well, stick around and get Purged if you want," he said and stood, picking up our empty bowls.  
  


"Wait—I just—"  
  


"I have a contract. It's time-sensitive."  
  


"Oh." I chewed my lip. "Is this a—mercenary sort of thing?"   
  


"Yes, it is a mercenary sort of thing." He likes to repeat my exact phrasing back at me. He thinks it's funny. "And," he added, crouching again and pitching his voice low, "if my target happens to become the Divine anytime soon, he'll be a much bigger pain in the arse to take out."  
  


I sat with that for a moment, and then I clapped my hand over my mouth. "Oh, no, ben-Mezd."  
  


"My job to cut the Bishop down to size."  
  


"Oh, no," I repeated. "You'll die."  
  


"There's worse ways to go." He nodded in the direction of the main gates, where the lizard's remains were.  
  


"I. . ." I sighed. I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Can I have a little time to think about this?"  
  


"We're short on time. If you haven't made up your mind by tomorrow, I'll go it alone. No problem."  
  


"I don't think it's a good idea."  
  


"Makes no difference to me, Safiya. I'll see you in the morning."  
  


And he went off carrying a bowl in each hand. I noticed a knife on his belt that wasn't there before. (Also he'd gotten hold of a belt.)  
  


Ulara, I don't know what to do. How am I supposed to leave here without knowing for sure where you are, or what's happened to you? What if you _are_ here and you need my help and I leave you alone? What if you've ended up like the lizard woman? Gotten Purged of your Source?  
  


And then what if I do go? I'm meant to help some mercenary kill the Bishop? There's no going back to a normal life after that. And that's all if I don't get us both killed, if I make him drag me along. Alone he might sneak out or something, but. . .my only combat skill is making bubbles.   
  


Love times a thousand,  
Safi


	4. Day 10

We're out of the Joy.  
  


We're out of the Joy.  
  


We're out of the Joy.  
  


Ulara, we're out of the Joy.  
  


There's been so much.

We're out of the Joy.  
  


We gathered up a couple more people, Ifan and I—those who would have us, those we could find. (I'm hoping we can still make a round trip for the others, but taking a small, strong party was Ifan's plan, and he's the ex-commander, so.)  
  


In the end we took on the Red Prince (our gamble, me and ben-Mezd, was that although he's a prick, having him and his big fucking sword between us and the enemy might be worth putting up with him. We were right.) and the elf woman from the middle deck, whose name, I've discovered, is Sebille.   
  


I also found out that Sebille is a former slave of the Ancient Empire—she and the Prince had a spat about it, and by 'spat' I mean 'blades-at-throats moment'. I think I'd have taken her side if it came to that, because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't, but I was glad when Ifan stepped in—we could kill one another once the immediate threat of the Magisters was behind us.  
  


Neither Sebille nor the Prince thought much of me at all, and I don't blame them, but Ifan (let all the Gods bless him forever) made it clear to them it was both of us or neither, and I suppose they thought highly enough of him that they made do with that. Didn't stop Sebille telling me at needlepoint (she carries this wicked needle) that 'if you decide to make a nuisance of yourself, I won't hesitate for a moment to cut you free and fly alone.'  
  


Is it weird to be lost in a woman's eyes while she threatens you with something sharp? This gleaming coppery-brown. Like yours. But anyway.  
  


We made no move on the eighth day. As it happened, Sebille and the Prince both had business with the same lizard, although for very different reasons. Another point of contention. The lizard, a flighty blue fellow, had had a part in Sebille's capture. But then, he was also a member of the House of Dreams, and the Prince wanted for a Dreamer to tell him about his destiny, mysticism, dream-visions, carry on. I don't know. Sebille kept her silence as the two lizards spoke, and then stepped out from the shadows and subjected the blue Dreamer to a very quick, very bloody interrogation. She smiled as she stuck him.  
  


While all this was happening, Ifan was away, asking around for any leads on an escape route. I'd told him about how I kept myself from drowning basically by blowing a bubble, and he'd decided to try and find me a book on Hydrosophy. I hoped he would, I wanted so badly to be useful.   
  


All right. Ifan was away: the direct consequence of this was that, when Sebille and the Prince were going to come to blows again—probably mortal blows—it was my silly old self who had to stop them.  
  


 _"Heresy,"_ the Prince was saying, having drawn his run-down two-hander from its makeshift sheath. "You are a fool beyond fathom, elf, to cut down a Dreamer under the eye of the Red Prince."  
  


"Cut down? I don't know. It was really more of a stabbing motion," smirked Sebille, miming the action with her long, sharp needle, bringing it perilously near to his face as she did.  
  


I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath and put myself between them. "Please don't," I said, even though I was shaking on my feet.  
  


"Trust a spineless little half-breed to take a slaver's side," said Sebille venomously. "I wonder what your mother would say."  
  


I blinked. "My father is an elf, not my mother."  
  


"Sweetling, if that man is an elf, then the sorry red pile of misery behind you is no less an elf. Speaking of which," she said, soundly knocking me off my feet with a kick to the back of my knee, "I suggest you drop the issue of Stingtail, my _prince._ I'd hate to sully this ground with the blood of not one, but two slaver miscreants."  
  


I don't imagine anyone had ever spoken to the Prince like that. He swung at her—she jumped out of the way of his blade. I scrambled to my feet. If Ifan came back and I had failed in my only job—to keep these two from murdering each other for all of one day—everything was buggered. I ran forward, I put out my arms, I wasn't really looking, I just needed to make them stop.  
  


Well, I did. The needle that might have buried itself in the throat of the Red Prince instead sunk all the way through my forearm, a little ways below the elbow, and came out the other side.  
  


Sebille was the first one to understand what had happened. "Oh, for the love of the fucking gods," she muttered.  
  


I stretched my arm out before me, watching the needle's glimmer on either side of my arm. A little rivulet of blood ran down to my wrist and dripped between my fingers onto the sand. "How do I get that out?" I asked dumbly. "I want that out."  
  


"That, at least, I can arrange," she sighed. She reached for me and took my arm and pinched the flesh tight around the needle and just. . .pushed it out, like she was completing a stitch with it.   
  


Rhalic's eyes, Ulara. I screamed fit to wake the whole island (although it was midday, so not many people would have been sleeping anyway. I hope)  
  


My legs wouldn't hold me and I dropped onto the sand. The little rivulet of blood became a small river down the length of my arm. Sebille licked the needle clean, and I watched her eyebrows quirk with some realisation. She tore a piece off of her tattered robe and held it out to me. I went to hold it against my arm.  
  


"A shortsighted course of action," interjected the Red Prince, idly. "Unless, of course, you're holding that disgusting rag because you want to give yourself a sanguine infection."   
  


"I—what?" I said. I couldn't get my mind right. I rubbed my arm, not around the wound, but lower down, near my wrist, and startled to find it so wet. It _hurt_ , Ulara—I had tears down my face, but I also felt like I might faint.  
  


He knelt and wrapped his hand around my arm, covering the wound, and I felt his palm heat up, slowly, until it became uncomfortable, and then the two puncture wounds became two points of white-hot fire. It hurt worse than anything that had come before. I screamed again, screamed until my throat felt like a peeled fruit. I jerked my arm away, but he held it firmly. I swore I heard myself sizzling. Just when I thought I was going to fall unconscious—to go off my head—to die—whatever—he let go. And beneath the bright smear of blood, I could see a dark-brown burn mark where moments ago there had been an open wound.  
  


"Now come," said the Prince, rising. "We're already on the shore, at any rate."   
  


I couldn't stand. I thought I would fall and crack my skull on top of everything else. I crawled the few feet to the sea.  
  


I was on the point of putting my arm in the seawater when I heard footsteps. I whipped around—too quickly, everything behind my eyes went black, and I saw it was Ifan, and I stayed where I was.  
  


He ignored Sebille and the Prince and came straight for me. I waved, and as I was waving became aware that my nose itched, so I pawed at my nose, and then I felt something wet and I realised I had just bloodied half my face. I wiped my right hand on my robe, which I noticed was also thoroughly stained. You know how I feel about blood, right? I'm sure Ifan could tell, too, when he sat down beside me.  
  


"Hey," he said urgently, "hey. What's happened?"  
  


It's nothing, I wanted to say. Bit of an accident with a sharp object. Very cool, very nonchalant. But I didn't speak. My arm still hurt more than anything I'd ever felt, and I was still so damnably lightheaded, and I hated all the blood that was everywhere. He reached out, probably to take my shoulder again or some other brusque 'pull-it-together' gesture, but I didn't want it, I fell into his side and just started sniveling and somehow that became a weird sidelong hug. He was gracious enough to hold on to me after he realised what was happening. I was glad we were facing the sea. I pulled away after a while, sniffed and rinsed my arm in the water. I splashed some onto the stained end of my tunic, as well, and wrung out about as much of the blood as I could, which wasn't much. Ifan sighed, dipped the end of his sleeve in the water, and scrubbed away the blood on my face, which I'd forgotten about. The salt water ran down over my lips. I could taste it on my tongue. "What the hell did you do?" he asked again.  
  


"Got into an accident," I said, evening out my breathing slowly but surely. I looked at the brown burn scars marking the needle's entrance and exit. "It's OK."  
  


Ifan looked, too, frowning hard. He stood up, turned and addressed his question to Sebille (who was picking through Stingtail's belongings) and the Red Prince. "What—the hell—did you do?"  
  


"For my own part? A spot of pyrokinesis to staunch the bleeding. Pleasure was all mine," added the Prince, pointedly, to me. "If, on the other hand, you want the needle-happy harpy who made a meat-skewer of your daughter, look no further."  
  


"My daughter?" repeated Ifan, looking baffled.  
  


"It was an accident," I said quickly.  
  


"That it was," confirmed Sebille, rising to her feet with a lazy grace. "You should thank your lucky gods she got in my way, and not that of the lizard brute. Kissed by a needle, or rutted by a greatsword. Hm."  
  


Ifan considered her, his expression threatening. "Safiya isn't my daughter," he said at last, "but you won't harm her if you don't want trouble."  
  


"Hm. Could have fooled me," shrugged Sebille. " _Could_ have," she added, and I remembered her face when she had tasted my blood.   
  


"It was my fault, anyway," I said. "Stuck out my idiot arm."  
  


"Enough for now," Ifan decided. He walked a little ways up the beach and I saw what he was going toward: a small stack of books, two of them, with blue linen covers, dropped in the sand on their spines or with their pages open to the wind. He gathered them up again and handed them to me. "I want you to see what you can do with these. They're Hydrosophy." He eyed the corpse of Stingtail. "I'm guessing you two have handled what you needed to handle."  
  


"And then some," said Sebille smoothly.  
  


"I won't forget," the Red Prince reminded her. "If you're exceedingly fortunate, you'll spend the rest of your days in a collar just like that. Perhaps I'll cut my family's mark into your other cheek."  
  


Sebille produced her needle again. Ifan stepped forward. She smiled tightly and shook her head, and she took the needle to her own arm. It hovered there for a moment, and then she thought better of whatever she was going to do and put it away. She breathed in, and out. "A few more days of this," she sighed to herself. "Then, freedom."  
  


Sheepishly, I shuffled the books, correcting a few pages that had been rumpled, and said, "I'll be at the square."  
  


I spent the rest of the day poring over the books. Both extremely dense, extremely theoretical. One of them was on healing, so lots about anatomy and the humours and blood vessels, carry on, and the other was an offensive spell to do with hail or ice or something. I started with the ice book—eventually I crept back out to the shore, sat at the edge of the sea, and practiced. After about an hour, I'd figured out how to freeze chunks of the water, although they were too ragged and blunt to be of any use. Next I tried to draw them up out of the water. The book said to draw strength from a physical motion, so, feeling stupid, I stamped my foot in the water as I threw my arms up—and three great spikes flew above me into the air! I held my breath and sliced downward with my arms, and the spikes buried themselves deep, deep in the wet sand, splashing me thoroughly as they landed.  
  


I laughed to myself. I couldn't help it. I was so proud.  
  


"That may well prove profitable," said someone behind me.  
  


I suppressed a sigh. "Is there something I can help you with?"  
  


"Do it again," commanded the Red Prince.  
  


". . .What for?"  
  


"Practice. Amusement. In order to satisfy my curiosity. What difference?"  
  


I breathed in and made the same gesture as before, stamped my foot halfheartedly and lifted my arms as if I was pulling out the icicles. I only raised two this time, and they were blunt and brittle and shattered on the beach without doing any damage whatever.  
  


I didn't turn around. I could feel his smug eyes boring into my back. I tried again, crushing my foot into the sand as hard as I could, and my arms felt heavy when I thrust them up over my head. FIVE(!) great sharp icicles flew like glittering spears, higher, higher still, almost out of sight. I watched them, and realised I would have to try and bring them down with some accuracy. I hesitated for a heartbeat, and in that moment I lost my grip on them, and they hurtled down toward the ground with no method at all. One of them bore down on me with its sharp point, and I froze. I'm sure if it hit me it would have killed me before I knew what was happening. I squeezed my eyes shut—and felt nothing except the cold sensation of water running down my face and neck.  
  


My hands flew to my head. I closed my fingers around something and held it before me: a half-melted puddle of tiny ice chips, too small for hail and yet too solid for snow. I can imagine the face I made trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. I must have only stood there for a second, but it felt like a very long time before the Red Prince snorted (the closest I've heard him come to laughing), and I whirled around, probably still looking absolutely confounded, with the diminishing lump of ice in my hand.  
  


"What did you do?" I asked, once I'd found the words.  
  


"That makes the second time today that my mastery of the pyrokinetic art has saved you from yourself." He scuffed a claw on his tunic, burnishing it. "I should admit I exceeded even my own expectations. Do you realise what sort of aim—what sort of wit is required to carry out such a manoeuvre?"  
  


" _What_ manoeuvre?" I pushed, letting the remainder of the icy water fall from my hands.   
  


"There," he said, and pointed. "One shard of ice. There—two, three, and four. And where, I wonder, is the fifth?"  
  


"That's what I'm asking you!"  
  


He smiled coldly, as if to remind me to watch my tone, and sighed a terribly dramatic sigh. I wasn't getting it. "Raise another one, then."  
  


". . .just the one?"   
  


"As an exercise in accuracy. Why not?"  
  


I bit the inside of my cheek and focused hard on creating one large, sturdy icicle. When I lifted my arms, I had created just the one, and a tiny little auxiliary shard that burst apart almost immediately. But it was still a failure, and it still irked me. I raised the icicle as high as I could while keeping an eye on it, and brought it hurtling down—but before it could land in the sea, a flyaway fireball crashed into its path and evaporated it.  
  


"Oh," I said. "That _is_ impressive."  
  


"I'm quite aware," he said.  
  


"You just did that at a second's notice?"  
  


"I should think it was far less than a second—but it would not be beyond the cognitive powers of even a blind slug, let alone one of _my_ formidable wit, to predict the danger."  
  


I froze a few whorls of ice that bobbed on the surface of the sea. I did it mostly to avoid his eye. "So you were waiting for me to bungle it."  
  


"'Bungle'," he pondered, and then went on: "Yes. And I should add that without that conviction on my part, you would have made a nail-board of your skull, and I would have had the unenviable task of quieting that wolfish lout who broods over you."  
  


"I'm sure Ifan would take your word for it."  
  


"Are you? Perhaps I was inclined to arrange your untimely demise. Certainly we would be fleeter—would be more likely to succeed in our mission—without you."  
  


"Why don't you leave me be," I said, stung. "If you go to the square and enough people see you, no one'll be able to blame you when I bash my head in."  
  


"So quickly piqued. Is that the impetuous human speaking, or the righteously indignant elf?"  
  


"Safiya is speaking, and she would like you to leave."  
  


" _Safiya_ is cursed with an excess of hubris if she deigns to dismiss a superior."  
  


I sighed and turned back. What was here for him? Couldn't he make up some smart reply or another to spare his pride, and then _piss off?_ I brought up another round of icicles and as they shot down into the sea before me, all four of them were vaporised in a puff of fire.  
  


"OK, well, not to presume," I said through gritted teeth, immediately raising more icicles, "but I'm sure there are more constructive things you might be doing to prepare for tomorrow."  
  


"What, like sparring? I ask you. A well-placed fireball is more than priceless in a fight."  
  


I managed a handful of rounds more with him peering over my shoulder, either melting an entire volley of icicles or choosing one to aim at, and then my nerves snapped and I excused myself and went back to the tent to make a start on the healing book.  
  


It wasn't entirely a lie. I had barely cracked open the healing book yet, and I felt stupid for it as the sun began to set. I should have put all my focus into healing. What good are a few angry ice shards? Luckily, though, the healing book made much more sense than did the first one, and I thought I had a handle on it. But what I needed, I reflected as the last sunlight fled, was for someone to rock up with a negligible little scrape, or a cut, or something, so I could return their blood to its place and make the edges of the wound reach out to one another(—it makes more sense in practice).  
  


I had my first spot of luck that day, probably the first since I'd gotten on that prison ship, when Ifan came back with bloody knuckles. "Fight," he explained shortly. "Guy had it coming."  
  


"Here," I said, holding out a bowl full of seawater I'd brought back with me just in case. "Put your hand in this. I want to see if the healing spell works."  
  


He didn't question me for a second, just plunked his hand into the bowl, and if the salt pricked his scraped knuckles, he didn't move a muscle. I covered his hand with mine, so that my fingers were in the water and making contact with the injury, and I thought of what I'd read, the salt in the water and the salt in blood, and the pieces of skin we leave everywhere, always, too minuscule to see, and the tiny little moving things in our bodies that kill disease and build scabs, and I made the magic move around the same way, like tiny bricklayers made of light. And then I felt that something had been drawn from the air and from the water, and I cracked an eye. ". . .Did it work?"  
  


Grinning, Ifan held out his hand to me. Dozens of old scars crossed it at various intersections, but there was no sign of the fresh bruising or the shallow cuts that had been there before. "Do the other one?" he suggested.  
  


I did, and it felt easier, more instinctive. Wholesome, in its way. Now I know why Hydrosophic healing almost never leaves a scar. (Unlike fire magic, which just ravages everything it touches. I think of that every time I look at the burn scars on my arm.)  
  


"Well done," said Ifan, grinning still as he checked the backs of his hands again.  
  


"I just wish I had a few more to do before tomorrow. Little cuts."  
  


"Sorry. I'd have let him land another hit on me if I knew."  
  


"Maybe I can ask Sebille if she'll stab me again," I said, only half-joking.  
  


"About that. What happened there?"  
  


"Oh. They got in a fight, and I panicked, I jumped between them, and Sebille has that needle-thing, and it. . ." I showed him my arm and made a needle of my finger, and pretended to stick it through.  
  


"Rhalic's rusty haft. I'd have shouted too."  
  


"Lucky it was just my arm." I smiled absently. I was thinking of what the Prince had said. "Listen. It's all well and good for me to try and learn a few spells at the last minute, but I really think the three of you would do better if I stayed here."  
  


"You're not chickening out now, are you? You gave me your word."  
  


"I'm not. I just don't want to be the reason you get caught again, or worse."  
  


"Safiya—"  
  


"You can't complete any contracts if you're dead."  
  


"I'm done arguing about this. We made a plan, and we'll stick to it."  
  


"But—"  
  


"Look," he went on, "I guess you think you're the only one with a warning label on you? In the War, I got more Deathfog in my system than anyone had ought to. If we're in the middle of a fight and I can't get my breath, I'm gone. I'm not counting on that, but it's happened.   
  


"Sebille. . .that mark? What was it, a song that controls it? The Magisters are idiots if they don't have a couple of lizard strong-arms ready to sing whatever that song is."  
  


"And the Prince?" I asked, half-convinced.  
  


Ifan frowned. "I don't think he's ever really taken a hit. I think if he took a bolt or a blade somewhere that hurt, it'd lay him out."  
  


"What makes you say that?"  
  


"Fancies himself a commander because he comes from certain stock. Moving pieces across a board is leagues away from being in the thick of the fight with the men under your command."  
  


I sighed. "But none of those things are guaranteed to happen."  
  


"Nothing's ever guaranteed. For all we know, you'll outrun every guard in that place and get out without a scratch, and the rest of us will all get killed. Just don't overthink it."  
  


"OK," I said. Don't overthink it. "OK."  
  


"Good. Get some rest. We move tomorrow."  
  


I slept soundly, to my own surprise.  
  


The next day. . .what's there to say? We got out of the Joy. Well: I got the chance to do a bit of healing, just cuts mostly, Ifan somehow ended up with an arrow in his shoulder, but praise the gods that it didn't strike a bone, it came out the other side so I could fix it. (Healing it felt weird. An arrow wound is a chasm. I felt like I had to fill it.)  
  


And I found about fifty different unthinkable things that might have happened to you. There was a Magister who lived in this pit of a room with congealing blood in every crevice and the things he'd done to people—You might have even been one of them. Ula, how am I supposed to tell? I'm going to crack, I'm going to go out of my head if I have to carry all of these 'maybe's, all of them awful beyond belief, in my head forever.   
  


I killed that man. In the same way I nearly killed myself the previous afternoon, with a long, sharp icicle that buried itself in his head. He didn't even bleed, just fell right over. And I suppose I spent the rest of our escape mission staggering about, blind with tears.   
  


We met a young man they were turning into a living weapon. He was out of his senses. I killed him, too—I meant to heal him. Sebille snapped at me to leave him be, but I couldn't, and whatever they had done to him—he was a wound. There was nothing in the world that wouldn't have hurt him, and no magic short of the magic of the gods that could have done anything for him. Do you know what he said? "Thank you, love." And I saw the threads of evil magic shudder beneath his skin as he died.  
  


We got on a boat.  
  


Several times we'd been warned about undead and Voidwoken outside of the Fort, but I didn't take it seriously—I thought the hard part was long over once we'd escaped, but as usual I was wrong. And the bloody thing about undead is they've had decades and decades and centuries even to perfect their craft—me with my dinky little ice blocks against a full-fledged master wizard? I left him to the Red Prince, who scattered the wizard's arcane bones quickly enough.  
  


We made it in one piece to the Sanctuary of Amadia. That's where I am as I write this. It's a mess of escapees, high up on the rocks, who want off the island. Which is excellent, because so do we. Where we'll go is another issue—as long as I get to Arx eventually, though, I won't complain, and I still hope against hope that you'll be there when I do. Why aren't you _here_ , anyway? You'd have escaped once you found out what the Order was really doing to Sourcerers, right?  
  


I know you would.  
  


Love forever,  
Safiya


	5. Day 11

Dear Ulara,  
  


I'm making a healer of myself. I have no choice, since I've been left behind here in the Sanctuary to help tend to the wounded. There are two here on reed mats who were on their way out—now—I'm no good at all yet, I get tired out very quickly and I have to channel through seawater instead of drawing everything I need from my surroundings, but I've been healing and resting and healing and resting all day and I'm starting to think that maybe I'm going to keep these two (a weedy elf with a shock of blond curls, and a lizard with sandy, greenish scales) from dying.  
  


There's a dwarf who went out before I could do anything for him. I'm trying very hard not to let that happen to the others. I can see his face, pale as parchment and smothered by a great beard the colour of a corn snake.  
  


The elf—Jules—woke up in the early afternoon, and promptly started sobbing (according to my book, if you're mortally hurt, even if you're not in pain, sometimes you'll weep on an instinct, because your body thinks it's dying). I knelt beside him and began another round of healing I wasn't really ready for. He had a great gash across his midsection, and it was bad, but it was simple, nothing punctured or ruptured, it just took work. "I'm sorry," I said when I had started to get light-headed. "I have to stop, I'm faint."  
  


Jules inhaled, held his breath, and exhaled shakily. He closed his hand around my wrist.  
  


"I'm going to be all right," he said, looking at me with astonished eyes.  
  


This'll sound stupid, but maybe I'll—well, I might pick up for a while and start a clinic or something when I get to Arx. . .  
  


xx,  
Safi


	6. Day 12

I'm not sleeping well.  
  


Jules was right: he's going to be absolutely fine. The lizard, Matis, woke up today, as well—I worry, because I think he has a punctured lung and I don't know what to do about that. He's very kind, and he has this lovely roiling brogue the same smooth colour as his scales, and I've been buried in my book all day hoping to find the trick that'll save him.  
  


Ifan and the others went off—for one, to try and get Lohse and the rest out of the Joy, and for two, to find a weapon against the Shriekers.  
  


That's another thing I've found out: Shriekers. The Magisters torture the soul out of a prisoner and bind them to a stake, and then they shriek. And if you're near enough to hear them shriek, you'll die. More than that, you'll break apart right down to the viscera and bone fragments. I think that's what was going to happen to that young man I killed. (Hey. They were going to make a Shrieker of a Seeker.)  
  


But my point. Ifan and the others have been out for a day and a half now with no word, and me left to fret.   
  


There's a great statue of Amadia here. I prayed to her, but all I felt was cold stone and cold water.

Safi


	7. Day 14

Ula. The past few days have been good, as weird as that sounds.   
  


(I'm still not sleeping well, I see the ice shard bury itself in that Magister's skull, and his eyes roll back into his head. I see the half-Shrieker elf and the dead dwarf. But my waking hours have been good.)  
  


We finally had a moment of bloody levity, first of all, because among all the crushing defeats the Seekers here have suffered, Ifan and the others came hobbling back out of the Joy with a handful of other Sourcerers in tow. Lohse was one of them, you'll be glad to know. I was glad to see her, too, because she's one of those people whose existence sends the group morale skyrocketing.  
  


Not only that: we got the fucking collars off. My gods, we got the collars off. I can breathe again. (I have a tan line on my neck!!)  
  


It was the beardy dwarf who convinced them to do it, the one I'd "saved" during the Voidwoken attack (he remembers, apparently, and stopped to thank me when he first came to camp!! He's a pirate captain. The 'Beast of the Sea'.)  
  


The last Sourcerer they'd brought back was someone who seemed to find it necessary to hide beneath a cowl—and when I say a cowl, I mean the hood came down past his chin. I have no idea at all how he gets around without bumping into everything.  
  


I saw him pray at the same statue of Amadia I prayed at before, and would you believe it? Amadia herself must have blessed the ritual pool. The stranger stepped out of the blessed water as though it was acid, but I couldn't have been happier.   
  


"Thank you," I told him, and he seemed to startle to see me there at all.   
  


Despite the fact that his face was fully covered, he radiated disinterest when he registered my presence. "Ah. You."  
  


"My name is Safiya."  
  


"Fine," he said. "Whatever are you thanking me for?"  
  


"Er. . .I meant, thank you for blessing the water. It'll be easier for me to heal people using that."  
  


"Ah. I was never much for restorative magics, myself. Especially not now. I suppose you're welcome."  
  


"I don't—think I caught your name."  
  


"No," he said matter-of-factly, with a last backward glance at the pool of Amadia, "I didn't give it, so."  
  


"Well," I persisted, a little louder, as he made to leave, "could I ask for it now?"  
  


"Hm. Fane. You're not planning on casting one of those primitive name-curses, are you? Cuneiform spells in clay tablets, and such and such."  
  


"No," I said dumbly, "that wasn't my plan, no."  
  


"Good."  
  


I coughed. "Did you come to Fort Joy. . .recently, or?"  
  


"Just as recently as you did—however near or far that is in your shallow view of time."  
  


"Oh. And. . .you're not a good hand at healing, at all?"  
  


"I did say that, didn't I. No, my talents are more of the. . .well, I'm exceedingly good at destroying things."  
  


"With. . .magic?" I tried.  
  


He cocked his head. "Is this some sort of cultural in-joke?—oh, you're bereft of your faculties, perhaps. Fascinating. Yes," he said, very loudly and slowly. "I—do—magic. Very—good—magic; I—do—lightning—and—"  
  


"I'm not _slow_ ," I said, my face blazing. "I was just wondering if there was anything you could show me about. . .offensive magic. I need to keep from dying for the foreseeable future."   
  


"Oh," said Fane. "In that case, you may ask me again later. I have a few notes to make."  
  


"All right," I said, and went off to fetch a bowl for the blessed water.  
  


One of the children took ill—that was the first time I used the water. It's unbelievable, the power in it. Well. God-given, I suppose. The little boy was on his feet again in hours, and this was him sick with the bleedfever. Running around healthy as anything, when he should have been on his deathbed.  
  


 _And,_ along with a lot of reading, the blessed water was what finally healed Matis, who was also on his feet by that time, but in poor shape all the same (because of the hole in his fucking lung).  
  


Do you know what I was missing? Lizards don't breathe the same way as other races do—that is, they don't breathe in and out again. They just breathe, on and on and on.  
  


And do you know how I found that out?  
  


Ifan, Sebille and the Red Prince had come back to the Sanctuary with the freed Sourcerers and Ifan had decided that they would spend the remainder of the day at rest and go out for their other errand the next day.  
  


And Ifan being Ifan, his idea of rest consists of recreational press-ups. That's what I found him doing when I got the word that he was back at camp.  
  


"Hi," I said.  
  


He stuck up one of his hands, waved at me, and then put it behind his back and went on doing press-ups with one hand.  
  


"I'm glad you're OK," I said. He sat up, rolled his shoulders and smiled at me. "Did you take the same route through the Fort?"  
  


"Wheezed my way through it."  
  


"No one got hurt?"   
  


He grimaced and pulled his linen shirt up over his head. Two old, symmetrical scars ran the width of his chest, one on each side. I'd never seen scars in that configuration. But more pressing was the diagonal slash across his entire torso, oozing through the fabric scraps with which the wound had been hastily decked. It was a lot like Jules' injury had been, but shallower, and I was a better healer now. I closed it within the hour, and I only took one rest in between.  
  


"D'you, er, ever have. . .trouble sleeping?" I asked, kneeling beside him, readying for the second round of healing.  
  


"What?" Ifan lifted his head to look at me. "Why?"  
  


"Just in general." I cleared my throat. "You know, humid air here and. . .planning, and. . ."  
  


He breathed out. "Saf—Safiya, I don't know what you're on about."  
  


I smiled. " _Saf_ is 'willow tree' in Mezdi."  
  


"Suits you."  
  


I stood up to fetch more water. I wondered if it would be sacrilegious to drink any of it. "I keep seeing, er," I said quietly. "That man—the torturer, in the dungeons, who I—"  
  


Ifan sighed. "First kill's like that."  
  


"I don't like it. He's stamped into my brain. That elf, too, and the lizard Magister who they—"  
  


"That wasn't you."  
  


"I know that," I snapped, and suddenly I couldn't catch my breath. "Imagine going out like that. Imagine going like _that_."  
  


"Can't be helped. Just don't drown in it, OK?"  
  


"I don't know how to stop myself."  
  


"Well—" He looked me in the eye and his eyes seemed impossibly, mercilessly green. I had the feeling he was trying to break some horrible news as nicely as possible. "It's a learning curve. Wake me if it happens again, OK, and we'll talk."  
  


"OK. I'm going to get water, and then I should be able to finish with that cut."  
  


The first thing Ifan did once the wound was healed was more press-ups. We were at the foot of the shrine to Amadia and caught the odd glance from a Seeker. The Red Prince came up, and gave me a look that said 'move'—I did, mouse that I am—and without another word settled opposite Ifan and started doing press-ups, too.  
  


I thought maybe I should leave, but I wanted to see who would win. (Silly me.) Lohse ambled over and shot me a questioning look. I could only shrug, so she sat down beside me and declared herself referee. She counted in a voice that was loud and clear and strangely resonant between the canopy of trees above us and the hastily laid planks below.  
  


She got to fifty before Ifan started to tire. I was honestly disappointed, my clueless self, I thought maybe it was the Deathfog-lung acting on him again, but I had wanted him to win, and now he was slowing and the Prince was nearly doubling his pace, and on one hand to boot.  
  


Lohse counted one-hundred, and Ifan held up a hand, 'I'm out,' and rose to his feet, watching bemusedly as the Prince continued without any sign of tiring.  
  


We were at three-hundred before Fane interrupted us. "Is this some sort of meditation? To embrace futility and find peace, and such and such?"  
  


"We aren't. . .meditating," I said tentatively.  
  


"Oh? Please enlighten me. What could possibly be the use of this. . .er, display?"  
  


"Um. Here's our heads right now," said Lohse, holding up a flat hand next to her head, "and here's you." She held up her other hand high in the air.   
  


"Incomprehensible, thank you. Unless I've been _very_ poorly informed," insisted Fane, "that fellow is a lizard, and the respiratory system peculiar to his race will—well—he'll go on like that for hours at the very least."  
  


". . .four-hundred," Ifan noted.  
  


The Red Prince sat up on his knees, and he wasn't even winded when he spoke. "I can hardly help that the hand of the goddess cut me from superior cloth."  
  


"We've been had!" cried Lohse, although she was smiling, glad, I think, for a little amusement in whatever form. Fane, for his part, disappeared, his curiosity sated.  
  


"Well," said Ifan, still trying to stretch the soreness out of his arms, "I'd say the best man won, but—"  
  


"That he has, in fact. Your utter ignorance as regards my physiology is by no means my concern." The Prince stood and brushed an imaginary piece of lint off his shoulder, and the line of his body was perfectly poised and absolutely insufferable.  
  


"Wait," I made myself say, because I had heard _lizard_ and _respiratory system_ and thought _Matis_. "What is it that makes your. . .respiratory system different from ours?"  
  


"'Superior' is the word you're searching for. And it is apt, make no mistake." He stared—in my direction, but lower than my eyes, and I became conscious of the movement, up and down, of my chest as I breathed. "In, and out," he said—in time with my breathing. I was supremely uncomfortable. "In, and out. How dreadfully tiresome."  
  


"You don't. . .breathe in and out, then."  
  


"The only thing in the world I need to do is _breathe._ Zorl-Stissa has spared me the endless farce of gasping for my life."  
  


I blinked. "But then—mechanically, then. How—"  
  


He was annoyed now. "The action is what you would call an inspiration, sans the eventual burden of aspiration. Next, shall I explain, at length, the anatomy and function of my reproductive system?"  
  


"No—" I rushed, "thank you—there's no need—" And I left, kicking myself mentally for such a stupid oversight.  
  


I was peeling the entirety of the healing tome Ifan had found me, in order to make sure I knew what I had to do, when the whole exchange happened with Fane and the blessed water, and I was preoccupied with the fevered kid for a few hours, and then in the late afternoon, I went to look for Matis.  
  


"I might have an idea," I told him, when I had found him sitting on the floor, polishing a shortsword.   
  


"You did a wonderful turn for the bairn who caught the fever, you know. I hope you've not been tearing your hair out for my sake," he said, lifting his eyes from the blade and fixing me with them. It was quiet. I could hear the airy whistle of his breath (and it was constant, I realised, one faint note).  
  


I shook my head. "I just—this is going to sound stupid, but you. . .only breathe in one direction."  
  


He smiled. "Is that a question, or?"  
  


"I've been thinking of it like a bellows. That's what the book said to do, focus on the cyclical motions in and out of the—doesn't matter. But that doesn't work for lizards. It's not a bellows, it's—I don't know. But—you're constantly sort of breathing _in,_ is that right?"  
  


Matis paused, and then I heard the whistle again. I saw his chest rise and fall, but, straining my ears, I didn't hear the slightest change in his breath, especially in that whistle, which itself would have been a dead giveaway.  
  


I nodded. "I know what I need to do." I fetched another bowl of the blessed water, and we went over to the little structure with the reed mats that had become my infirmary. I asked him to lie down and put a hand on his chest and pictured the tiny blessed bricklayers rushing through his body on the tide of his breath, which—this was the sticking point before—was a constant FLOW without ebb. And then it was done, and I heard the blood rushing in my head from the effort, but I _didn't_ hear anything resembling a whistle.  
  


"Oh," said Matis, and inclined his head. He lay back for a moment and breathed. "You are a wonder, Safiya."  
  


"No," I sniped, "I'm an idiot for taking three days about this. I'm really sorry—if I'd only known the _first thing_ about—"  
  


He had sat up as I was speaking and put a calm, sun-warmed hand on my arm to quiet me. "Not that it's been comfortable, but I don't suppose being dead would have suited me any better. And don't confuse yourself, I'd be in the ground now, along with Jules and the wee one, if you hadn't turned up." He looked out and considered the ocean. "Maybe in the water. Got no clue."  
  


I shook my head. "At least I know now. In case it comes up again."  
  


"Aye. Now I think I've an appointment with a miserable rust heap of a sword. 'f you'll excuse me."   
  


I set about cleaning up. The little boy had thrown up a LOT of foul blood for a short while before I got to him. I folded the few old rags that had been placed at my disposal and took stock of the bandages we had (not many). The fact that I had succeeded in saving lives today didn't quite touch me until dinner, when we gathered around a sputtering fire with bowls of fish stew (one thing you can always get here is fish) in hand, and I saw that little boy running circles around the camp, chasing a firefly, unbothered by his circumstances, by Ifan's discussing strategy with the head Seeker's squire, by any of it. I don't know, it was stupid, but I watched him and I started sniveling. Ifan followed my gaze, found what I was looking at, and, grinning, threw an arm around my shoulders, all without missing a beat in explaining his plan of attack.  
  


"Don't take this the wrong way," he said later, with a towering stack of empty bowls in hand, as we descended to the shore to rinse the dregs from the cauldron, "but I'm halfway proud of you."  
  


I was determined to take it the wrong way. "Thanks, ben-Mezd," I said in a tone that was too sweet to be sincere, but not quite sweet enough to be a joke. So suddenly the air was heavy, and I went on. "If you weren't looking out for me, I'd have just sat around in the Joy like an idiot until I died."  
  


"Waiting to be cured, right?"  
  


"You've been looking out for me since we were on the—the—" The Merry-something? "—that ship," I said. "Why?"  
  


"Hey, I'll back off if you want me to," he said airily.  
  


"I didn't say that. I just want to know why."   
  


And I suppose he caught on that I wasn't joking. "I don't know," he said roughly, and he started to say more, but he caught himself.  
  


I sighed and sat down in the sand, placing the cauldron in my lap. "OK. Well, even if it was only a whim or whatever, thank you."  
  


"I th—" He kneeled beside me, frowning at the impending edge of the sea as though the water had just insulted his entire bloodline. "You know I fought in the War. And I'm assuming you know what happened with the elves and the Deathfog."  
  


"Yeah," I said quietly. "Ulara's family." (Sorry. It just came to mind.)  
  


"Mine too," said Ifan, with a fraction of a smile. "Least, the closest thing I'd had."  
  


"Oh."  
  


"Funny thing when everyone you ever knew is gone in an instant. It's, ah—" He cleared his throat. "Feel a bit like a boat with its moorings cut."  
  


"I'm sorry."  
  


He waved me away. "Answer your question: I don't know why. What's the Mezdi word for water?"  
  


" _Ba'ai,_ " I said. "With the hard 'a'."  
  


" _Bai._ "  
  


" _Ba'ai,_ " I repeated.  
  


" _Baai_."  
  


" _Ah. A'a._ " I made the sound a few times, sort of a punctuated 'a-ah'. It's a hard one for people to get the hang of. " _Ba'ai._ "  
  


" _Baai._ Shite." He shook his head and stood up with the clean bowls in hand. "You know you remind me of home. Not home where I grew up, sure, but home where I was born."  
  


" _Ben-Mezd,"_ I said. Son of Mezd.  
  


"I think—I think if I did have a daughter, I. Well." And without finishing his thought, he made himself scarce and left me to deal with that great big bugger of a cauldron on my own.  
  


I washed that cauldron out like the undead were after me, because they probably were and I was alone on the beach in the darkening twilight. Father of the Year, is Ifan. I could have died.  
  


What's more is I'd wanted to carry it back filled with seawater in case I need it tomorrow, for healing or cooking or whatever else. But there was no chance of me hauling that thing back alone. If I do end up needing the water, I know who's going to fetch it and it won't be me.  
  


(I was glad to hear him say what he said, though, I can't tell you how glad I was. And _hell_ —you know my father, unfortunately. As far as I'm concerned—)  
  


I made it back in one piece, though, thank the Gods, and Ifan was out of sight. I thought he'd probably holed up in the corner where we'd tossed our bedrolls a handful of nights ago and decided to stay, but I didn't want to see him right away, nor did I want to sleep yet. And neither did anyone else, I guessed, since the camp was still in a quiet buzz.   
  


The Red Prince was on the platform beside the shrine to Amadia, where normally a masked priestess perches. But she was out on the fringes of the camp tonight, and he was there instead, gazing out at a sliver of ocean that showed between the branches.  
  


I went and sat before the statue of Amadia, because it was something to do, and because I hoped she would speak to me as she had spoken to Fane. Maybe I would even get a little magic out of it. Just so that I could defend myself with more than a few overblown ice chips. I kneeled in the water (it's always hot out here, and so humid that you're always kind of damp anyway, so it hardly matters) and did my best to concentrate. The radiance of the water had dulled throughout the day to a kind of quietly pearly quality; being in it was still the most soothing thing in the world. I felt like nothing had ever been wrong or would ever be wrong again, for as long as I lived. And I tried so hard, I pointed my ears to try to hear Her voice, but nothing. Nothing, just water. Just stone.  
  


"Stop that," said the Red Prince.  
  


I opened my eyes. Something gleamed just in the corner of my sight. I'd stirred up a series of waterdrops that swirled around me, half-transparent and half pearls, catching and reflecting their own light. It was pretty, but I couldn't care. I sighed and laid them slowly back into the pool.  
  


"That's better. I was prepared to tolerate your insinuating yourself, uninvited, into my space, but it _truly_ sets my teeth on edge to have things—dart about in my periphery."  
  


"Sorry," I said. "I'm not trying to impose, I'm just—"  
  


"I haven't asked for an explanation, and nor do I intend to."  
  


"Well," I said, heatedly, "since I've disturbed you anyway, could I ask for a favour?"  
  


He bristled. "And who are you suddenly to demand favours of me?"  
  


"I'm not demanding," I said, sounding very much like I was demanding. I softened my tone. "That's why it's a favour."  
  


"Mercy under the eyes of the Seven. What is it that you want?"  
  


"I would appreciate it," I said, standing, "if you'd ask for the blessing of Amadia. She gave it to that Fane earlier today. I don't see why she shouldn't give it to you."  
  


"Feeling overlooked by our so sorely treasured gods, are we?"  
  


"Yes," I said shortly. "Will you please try?"  
  


Without another word, he came down from the platform and stood where I had been kneeling, in the center of the pool, and touched the statue.   
  


A few slow minutes went by, and—what do you think? Suddenly the pool burned with holy light, and the white glow of the blessed water flashed through the treetops, and the Red Prince rose and fixed me with a look so self-satisfied I thought my mouth was going to run away with me.  
  


Instead I said: "Good on you."  
  


He chuckled—chuckled _at_ me, just a short expulsion of sound to say 'fuck you', and stepped out of the water. "Don't start to self-flagellate, now. Manifestly the Arcane Lady would never turn her back on the Red Prince."  
  


I shook my head. "Well, er, thank you for taking the time."  
  


"I suppose I shall have ample time to collect on the debt."  
  


I didn't know or care what that was supposed to mean. I kneeled in the water again, though I wasn't sure what I was going to try and do. I didn't have time to think about it.  
  


"You know I've reminded myself that I should refrain from expecting anything at all of your kind, but an entire camp's worth, and not one creature bright enough to grasp the pointlessness of a battle of endurance against one of my race. . ."  
  


"Fane did," I pointed out, cracking an eye. I wasn't sure if I was meant to say anything or if he was just monologuing.  
  


"After an _eternity,_ yes. Frankly, though, I am galled anew each day to realise what a pittance of knowledge anyone here in the East possesses as concerns his betters."  
  


I sighed inwardly and turned toward him, opening my eyes proper. "It's a pretty big oversight. There's not even any mention of lizards in my healing book."  
  


"Boundless your mortification must be. And no personal knowledge to draw upon, in the absence of an academic treatise?"  
  


"I—about your breathing?"  
  


"Among every other elementary piece of lore."  
  


"I—" I ran a hand through my hair (it's gotten so coarse and frizzy in this sea air. . .well. Coars _er_ and frizzi _er_.) "I remember noticing it once, actually, but I—" I could feel my face heating up, but I'm not pale and night had fallen, so I hoped he couldn't tell. "—he was a soldier, too. I just thought he was in really good shape."  
  


"Will I speak on my admirable instinct, and guess that you did not evaluate his endurance by means of a foot-race?"  
  


"You aren't wrong," I mumbled. I stood up. I didn't like to talk up at him, especially not now. "It was only the once, though. Hardly enough to go on."  
  


"Oh? He fell short of your exacting standard."  
  


"No," I said sharply. "He was lovely, it was just—circumstances."  
  


"A furlough that drew to a close. . . .A lover's spat. . . .A casualty of war."  
  


"You're _nosy_ tonight. 'Scuse me for saying so." I went on before he could get offended, climbing the stairs to the platform so that at least we were at eye level. "We were never seeing each other. I was just working at a. . .well, at a certain sort of public house."  
  


"Ah." He looked me over with a newly critical eye, and I regretted coming up to the platform. "No, I don't imagine such a timid thing drew many of my kinsmen for suitors."  
  


"I was a _server_ ," I snapped. "It just happened that. . .sometimes a man would mistake me for one of the ladies, and if he was—you know, very pretty, or his purse was heavy and he didn't strike me as a right ogre. . ."  
  


"A pretty ogre would have been permissible, then."  
  


"There were a few," I grinned, but I still didn't know if he was toying with me. "Rahim. . .was very pretty, and not at all an ogre."  
  


"And so, alas, he was impoverished."  
  


"Alas." I looked him in the eye—his eyes, orange flames, glowed as brightly at night as they did in the day. I thought of Rahim—Rahimus, officially, but he wouldn't answer to it—he was _dead_ pretty all right, glittering scales all in pink and purple. I wondered how he was doing. "But since you're on about my ignorance, how much do you know about human anatomy? Or—Elven, or—well, comes down to the same thing, sort of."  
  


"More than enough. The lion's share of the House of War has enough mundane knowledge of your sort at their disposal."  
  


"Why?" I asked, and he didn't answer. He was waiting for me to realise that it was, yet again, an issue of keeping slaves. And I suppose he saw my face change when it occurred to me.  
  


"Ha. Far be it from me to infringe on your sulking, if you think to do even a modicum of good with it. Although—"  
  


"Stop baiting me!" I burst out. "What do you want? D'you want me to go on about the virtues of doing what your Empire does and pragmatism and value and utility and—sod off."  
  


"I will not," he said smoothly. "If you feel morally obliged to remove yourself from my presence, however, I will be only too delighted."  
  


Well, I did _remove myself from his presence_. I felt suddenly very ready for bed, or at least for a lie-down. Ifan was there, as I expected. I didn't expect Sebille to be there with him, nor for the two of them to be chatting so fondly. Apologising for interrupting them, I swiped my book and got to work on this entry. But it's been long enough, I figure, and I'm tired so I'm going to bed, whether or not they're finished.  
  


The day is out, and everything's been good for a little while (the odd bastard of a lizard prince aside).  
  


I hope our luck keeps up. I hope we get out of here OK. I hope we find you somehow, and you're all right. I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope.  
  


I love you.  
Safiya


	8. Day 15

Ulara, I'm having the longest day of my life.  
  


Ifan and the others killed a DRAGON, so: progress? Not for a laugh. Supposedly it was carrying the thing we needed to do away with the Shriekers. Still—a _dragon._  
  


He has a knack, that man, for being the farthest one away from the fight and still getting horribly injured, and when I say knack I mean they brought him back with the severed end of a dragon's claw sticking out of his chest.  
  


I _screamed_ when I saw him. I thought sweet fucking gods, that's one lung rent, a few shattered ribs, who knows what else, and I have to try and fix it, and that was if, _if_ pulling out the great fucking claw didn't do him in right then and there. I froze.  
  


He was still conscious by that point, and he must have been convinced he was going to die—he put his hand on my cheek (and left a smear of dirt and blood as he did) and, woozily, said "Saf. Could use a hand."  
  


"I can see that," I snapped, and nearly bit through my bottom lip so I wouldn't cry. And then, of course, I started crying.  
  


Sebille was hovering about. "Can I help?" she asked.  
  


"I need water from the pool," I said. "As much as you can bring." And she nodded and went away.  
  


I tried to even out my breathing. I did what the book calls a 'wash': that's just to disperse a bit of energy everywhere to see where it bounces back, where the damage is, and I wished I hadn't, it felt like this huge din of shrieking cuts and lacerations and gauges and displaced blood and broken flesh and scorched skin and a million other things just screaming out at me. There was no way. There was no way.  
  


"A fascinating _modus operandi,_ " said the Red Prince, coming up behind me, "to sit and hyperventilate as that claw exsanguinates your associate. I assume you do intend to act at some point."  
  


I moved my mouth. I couldn't turn my head, I couldn't lift my hands. "I c—I—"  
  


There was a flash of heat in the base of my skull, it flared out—it was bracing, like a headache in reverse, that's the best I can describe it, and I felt like I had control over my body again.  
  


"Good," said the Prince. "I suspected that would do the trick."  
  


"I don't know what to do," I said calmly.  
  


"Well, what is the problem?"  
  


"Everything's the problem!" I shrilled. "Look at him! Everything's the problem!"  
  


"Which is the most pressing?"  
  


I shook my head. "Er. Claw. It'll disrupt any healing I try to do."  
  


"We pry it out, then."  
  


"No! Are you insane? It's pushing—er, pier—piercing something _important."_  
  


"What is it piercing?"  
  


"I don't know. Ah." I closed my eyes and focused. "Lung. Left. Artery. There's going to be a massive bleed."  
  


"So staunch it."  
  


"I can't do the lung and the blood."  
  


"Which will kill him, if neglected?"  
  


"Both!"  
  


"Which will kill him _quickest?_ "  
  


"Ugh. Both! Blood. No—" I thought about it. "Yes. Blood."  
  


"Well, then, the floor is yours."  
  


I squeezed my eyes shut—I was still seeing him, mind, seeing the energy from the wash, it's all very whimsical—and I don't think I ever felt more afraid, not when the ship sank, not in the dungeons of Fort Joy. I pulled slowly, painfully slowly, and almost right away the severed artery started to _spout._ But I was expecting that. I closed it, a single vessel by itself isn't complicated, and I pulled out the rest. I tossed aside the claw the moment it was free. After that, it was—a lot less frightening. Sebille brought the water in what looked like a large ceremonial vase. There was still the great tear in his lung and, frantic, I tried the same thing I had done with Matis, to focus on the breaths, but Ifan's were so faint and shallow, it took forever, and it was that much more demanding on my body. By then I was fully in tears from exhaustion and terror.  
  


But the immediate danger was past. The rest was repairing flesh, soothing burns, and sorting out a few errant rib fragments (those can kill you if they manage to get somewhere they shouldn't). The ribs are going to be very sore for a long while, I think, but I managed mostly to put them back together. It seemed like an eternity had passed when I sealed the skin itself. I badly wanted a change of clothes, I was drenched with arterial blood, but I had nothing with me and nothing to trade with, so I went down to the sea and sloshed around in the water, and that cleared up a bit of it, but not the majority.  
  


When I came back, Ifan was stirring. Again my eye fell on the twin horizontal scars on his chest. I said nothing.  
  


"You look terrible," he croaked, opening his eyes with an effort.  
  


I was certain I did. I was sopping with blood and seawater, probably still blubbering, and my hair was coming out of its haphazard bun.   
  


"Don't look at me like that," he went on.  
  


"How am I supposed to look?" I snapped, wiping my runny nose with the back of my hand. I knew what look he meant—I was boiling with resentment and fright and relief and fondness, and more than a little tired. "How am I _supposed_ to look?"  
  


Ifan took my hand—the one I had just doused with snot. (Aren't you glad I give you these little details?) It stopped mattering in an instant though, his hand was so caked with blood and filth that _he_ was the one begriming _me._ "Saf," he said, and he was halfway to his next word when a different thought seemed to occur to him. "How long have I been out?"  
  


I looked around me for some clue. A full twenty-four hours could have passed and I wouldn't have known it.   
  


"Four hours," offered Sebille, who was still hovering. "It's about noon."  
  


"Shite," Ifan spat. "Shite. Can you take Safiya and the Prince north to the old vault?"  
  


I shook my head. "What?"  
  


"The wolf seems to think we need a second Purging wand," Sebille explained.  
  


"I've got a name," put in Ifan. "I've got a handful, Sebille, take your pick."  
  


"Hush," said Sebille, with the hint of a smile playing on her lips.  
  


"We have to move today, Safiya," said Ifan, turning to me again, "we need that wand today and we need to move before sundown."  
  


"That's insane," I said firmly. "I need to keep an eye. What if I've missed something while I was healing and—"  
  


"Too bad for me, then. You need to go so that no one _else_ gets thrashed the way I've gone and done. We need the wand, and we need everyone on their feet."  
  


I stood, and I found that my head was heavy. "I don't—"  
  


"Let that Gareth know where you're going and who you're taking, all right? And if you can't do it before sunset, just come back." He was speaking broadly now, commanding an audience of footmen that happened to include Sebille and me.  
  


The first thing I did was find the girl who had been running the infirmary before we came in from Fort Joy. (She's lovely—trembly little blonde thing. Apple-cheeked). I asked her to keep a close eye on Ifan. "He's lost a bit of blood," I added.  
  


She brightened. "That, I can help. Meat, fruit, and salt's the trick. And water, of course!"  
  


"Thank you," I gabbled. "Whatever helps. Thank you."  
  


Gareth seemed to have been waiting for me when I showed up at his little war-table—at least, he was waiting for someone. He was all in gleaming white and silver. I felt unspeakably filthy in my blood-stained rag. "Good day," he said graciously. "I suppose you're our healer?"  
  


I grimaced before I could stop myself. "Safiya. Is my name. I, ah, I suppose more and more people have been calling me a. . .healer, lately, so, er. I suppose."  
  


"There's no need for modesty," he said grandly. "I have heard good things from my fellow Seekers."  
  


"Sorry. Have we met? I didn't think you were a new escapee—"  
  


"Ah. Sir Gareth. Leader of the Seekers, such as they are. Your companions helped me out of a precarious situation with the Magisters, just this morning."  
  


"Was. . .was this before or after the dragon?" I asked faintly.  
  


"Before the dragon. It seems that one of your associates is no longer disposed to mount rescues." Gareth nodded at Ifan's form on the reed mats. He looked horrid from a distance, limp and bloody. "Although considering that he lives still—" he squinted, "—right?"  
  


"He's alive," I confirmed, biting my lip.  
  


"Thank Lucian. Considering that, after such an injury, he lives still, I'd say you're welcome to the title of 'healer'."  
  


I shrugged. "Er, Ifan wants us to go out and find another wand, so that we can evacuate today."  
  


"Yes, he said as much. And I think he's right on both counts. One can't take enough precautions against a Shrieker." He shuddered at the memory. "And every day we delay could be the day the Order ends us once and for all. But as I say, he seems indisposed to the task."  
  


"Well. I'm meant to go, instead," I said nervously, waiting for the burst of laughter or the stern 'stop-joking-around' look. Neither came. "Hopefully with a. . .healer. . .in the field, no one will come back in the condition Ifan did. That's the idea."  
  


"You had best hurry, then, if you're to return by sunset. Are you. . ." Gareth looked me up and down. ". . .quite equipped? You don't need any armour? A staff?—A bath?"  
  


"Well, I—I—"  
  


"Why don't you speak with Kerban. He'll loan you something for the day."  
  


"Thank you," I said, and meant it.  
  


I spoke with the smith, Kerban (I saw him catch Gareth's eye over my shoulder before he believed me). I ended up with a staff of plain wood, topped with a troubled blue gem, and some nondescript cotton robes. I was just happy not to be covered in blood and debris.  
  


We were on the point of setting out when Fane accosted me. "You. I couldn't help but overhear—well, I rather could, but I gather you're making an excursion to some ancient vault?"  
  


"Yes," I said uncertainly.  
  


"Excellent. Count me in. I'm invaluable, really, both as a man of letters and—a man of. . .fireballs."  
  


I cast a glance at Sebille and the Red Prince.   
  


"No need," the Prince answered for me. "If the lout was comfortable sending his fledgling for the task, I do doubt the danger involved."  
  


"Well," I flared, "as we've seen, people get _hurt_ when you go in understaffed."  
  


"And overconfident," supplied Sebille.  
  


I turned to Fane. "Please come with us," I told him, mostly out of spite for the Prince.  
  


"Yes," he said matter-of-factly. "That _is_ what I said." I think he'd have dandered after us no matter what I told him.  
  


The Red Prince took point as we made our way north, alternately through hot patches of sand and sudden thickets of forest. Something occurred to me as we walked.  
  


"I wanted to thank you," I called, cautiously.  
  


He said nothing.  
  


I quickened a little, trying to close the distance. "For helping me with Ifan. I don't—I just froze. I don't know what happened."  
  


"I beg of you," he said at last, without turning his head. "Any half-decent leader knows how to deal with a gibbering subordinate."  
  


Maybe my skin is wearing thin, but it's harder and harder every time to shake off the casual insults. "You saved his life," I said.  
  


"Now that is a patent untruth. I am perfectly capable of earning credit for my own deeds, thank you—without, I should stress, the feeble aid of my lessers tossing their crumbs at my feet."  
  


I wrestled with that in my head. I think it came to a compliment, a small, bitter, hard-won compliment. "You cast that spell on me."  
  


"A charm for calm. Sorely needed, as it seemed."  
  


"Can I do that with Hydrosophy?"  
  


"Not on yourself, at any rate, not without an _abundance_ of self-discipline. If anything, I'd recommend that you locate another of those subpar spell tomes, if only for lack of a proper volume from the West. . .perhaps if you let your spurious father figure scent one of the books in your collection, he'll fetch another." He hummed lowly to himself, amused with the thought.  
  


"What are spell books from the Ancient Empire like?" I wondered.  
  


I was sure he was only humouring me because the walk had become long and boring. "They are spell books," he said, as though he was explaining one plus one. "They are spell books like the books in the East, but that they are complete, and reviewed, and were not scribed in your beastly tongue. Alas for you."  
  


"Which beastly tongue?" I said pleasantly. "I have three."  
  


"I was referring to this—Eastern Common of the humans, but if the shoe fits, my dear. . ."  
  


I had never heard the words 'my dear' pronounced with so much disdain. I shivered.  
  


Then a bunch of undead dwarves crawled from the shrubbery—we were in the thick of a forest patch—and there was no time for talking.  
  


It would have been about three or four in the afternoon when we got to the place—Sebille held her palm up to the horizon and hissed for us to hurry. What Ifan had called a "vault" looked to me like a natural cavern of dark rock.  
  


Inside, though, it was awash with eerie blue light—some of it might have come from the glowing mushrooms, but the air was charged with magic. And there was a skeleton just inside—an Undead—with his hands on his hips, as though he had just been waiting for us.  
  


We paused. The Undead didn't say a word. He cocked his head, fixing us with empty eye sockets, and the grey beard that was somehow clinging to his skull—bristled, giving the impression that he was grinning broadly.   
  


"What. . .a. . .sexy. . .spread," he said at last, looking us over. "Kindly fuck off."  
  


"What was that?" asked Sebille, advancing. It was almost funny the way she loomed over him, once they were closer.  
  


The Undead seemed to think so, too. "Shame you're all the way up there. Or—" Slowly and deliberately, so we could follow his line of sight, he lowered his head so that his sockets were flush with Sebille's chest. "Perfect. Can a fellow get an eyeful of those juicy ti—"  
  


She thrust her needle into his eye socket, and it would have gone right through his skull if he hadn't pulled a bit of magic and disappeared in a burst of smoke and debris, reappearing safely a few feet away.  
  


"An illusionist," said the Red Prince under his breath. "Delight of delights."  
  


Sebille went after him. Twice she tried to stick him, and twice he magicked himself away.  
  


"You know for a slave you really don't give it up easy," drawled the skeleton. "Oh, if only I knew the song for that nasty scar, I'd have you. . .hm. On second thought, no. Who _knows_ where you've been."  
  


I couldn't process what I was hearing. She'd have made _splinters_ of him if he wasn't so slippery. I sort of wanted her to.  
  


Sebille was bright red with anger, but she folded her arms and stood her ground. She threw a look at us: _what now?  
  
_

Fane cleared his throat and approached the Undead. "I suppose there's a real version of you somewhere we'll have to kill?"  
  


The Undead pretended to think about that. He grabbed the lip of Fane's cowl with both hands and threw it back over his head—his—skull, I should say, because as it turns out Fane is also Undead.   
  


"Look!" cried the Undead—the not-Fane—OK, we found out later that his name was Trompdoy. So to avoid confusion:  
  


"Look!" cried Trompdoy. "Like two drops of water! Maybe _you're_ the real me! Maybe if I kill you, I'll disappear. Hmmm. Hum." He tapped a bony finger to his chin. "If you're my real copy, answer me this: do you—do _we_ —do _we_ have a girthy magical pecker dangling between our legs? Or is it turned to dust like the rest of us?"  
  


Trompdoy put out his hand as if to feel for himself, but Fane closed a hand around his wrist. "You are an exasperating little man," he snapped, and it was the closest I'd seen him come to an emotion other than mild academic interest.   
  


"Ha." Trompdoy ran his fingers through his beard. "I _know_ you're not my copy, because I'm not a failure. I'm not the idiot who wrecked the world. Do you even know where you are right now, you sorry, outmoded sack of bones?"  
  


Fane took a few steps back and flourished his hand, and Trompdoy and the entire area around him went up in red flames, high enough to lick the ceiling of the cave.  
  


I felt someone's breath on my neck and yelped. I still can't fathom how or why a skeleton would breathe, except to make me uncomfortable, which it did. I spun around and I was much, much too close to Trompdoy. I nearly leapt backward.  
  


"Spicy," he huffed in my ear. "Wonder what that mutt blood tastes like. Oh! Wonder what that mutt _cun_ —"  
  


Without even thinking, I elbowed him hard and he appeared in front of me, still in total violation of my personal space. "I must be mental. If even daddy dearest didn't want you, something must be _terribly_ wrong, eh? And Mummy put a gold price on her own head just to escape you!"  
  


"A _gold_ —" Suddenly I was choking. "Keep your fucking mouth _shut_ about my mother."  
  


Trompdoy leaned in so close our foreheads touched. "If you're a whore, but no one will pay to have you, then—?"  
  


" _Enough,_ " said the Red Prince, as the last of Fane's magefire dissipated. "If the parlour tricks of this skeletal fool are truly his _chef d'oeuvre,_ then we shall leave him to his games." And he strode through the charred hall.  
  


Trompdoy appeared in front of him and splayed his fingers—(phalanges?)—across the Prince's broad chest. "Leaving so soon, my exiled prince? Oh, send me a missive when you return to your Empire and they make a bed-slave of you. But it could be worse. They'd make a _corpse_ of you if not for that beautiful crimson c—"  
  


Not even bothered to unsheathe his greatsword, the Red Prince aimed a hard punch at Trompdoy's skull. It had the effect of forcing Trompdoy to teleport again, which I suppose is all the Prince wanted—he walked on without so much as a backward glance.  
  


"You've got two of 'em, haven't you!" Trompdoy called after him. "Sharing is caring!"  
  


"Before we're out of here," said Sebille, similarly ignoring Trompdoy as she pressed on, "I'm going to find a way to end that skeleton."  
  


"Please," I mumbled, praying the cave was dark enough that no one would catch me blinking away stray tears.  
  


"That sounds like a—er—sound plan," intoned Fane, catching up to us, "but I do hope there won't be any attempts to end _me_. Those are always such a pain."  
  


"If you're a creature half as vile as that illusionist, I'll make it my pleasure to kill you," Sebille told him. "If not—well. We seem to have more important business."  
  


I was inclined to agree. We pushed farther into the odd cave-structure, and it began to look more like a vault as we went. There were shifting walls of blue magical matter everywhere, and the light, coming from all directions, cast strange, spiky shadows against the mottled rock face of the cave.  
  


Trompdoy hounded us. Besides being able to zip from place to place, he had the uncanny (and ANNOYING) talent of copying himself, so that we had to face off against an archer-Trompdoy, as well as a wizard-Trompdoy, and a Trompdoy bearing sword and shield, too, why not.  
  


Surrounded on all sides by teleporting Trompdoys is—I don't recommend it. It's fucking stressful. If he was being a flippant arsehole before, he was quiet now and his deadly focus was on us.  
  


"We haven't an archer," breathed Sebille, as another arrow with bright blue fletching whizzed far too close for comfort. One had already speared Fane in his arm, but he had the good luck of being a skeleton; the arrow had passed between the two curved bones of his forearm without doing the slightest damage.  
  


The wizard-Trompdoy cast a cloud of electricity about us. I was standing, with one foot, in a puddle of cave water that had probably dripped from the ceiling. Immediately the sensation of a sparking fire took over my whole body, crawling up from the leg and raging its way to the height of my chest before someone pulled me by the arm and my foot came out of the water.  
  


I felt sick.   
  


Fane and Sebille were dealing with the wizard-Trompdoy, but the archer-Trompdoy was loosing shot after shot on us. The Red Prince was in the unlucky position of having to hold off the sword-and-shield-Trompdoy while the archer-Trompdoy was also aiming for him.  
  


"For gods' sakes, make yourself useful!" the Prince urged me.  
  


I was sluggish. My leg was still burning and if I wanted to throw ice, I would have to draw from the shallow rivers running throughout the rock, several feet below us. I lifted sharp icicles from the water, slowly, like a heavy weight, and I leveled them above the archer-Trompdoy, who was ignoring me so thoroughly I was almost insulted.  
  


Several things happened in the next instant. I heard the clatter of a greatsword on the stone floor. Sebille "killed" the wizard-Trompdoy, who vanished in a puff of smoke. The archer-Trompdoy gave a cry of victory and aimed his next arrow squarely at my head. I panicked and dropped the icicles, as hard and as fast as I possibly could, and by some miracle I 'killed' him, too.  
  


"Fane!" Sebille called.  
  


"Yes," said Fane, dodging a blow from the remaining Trompdoy's shield that would have crushed in his face, "I'm well aware!"  
  


The Red Prince was kneeling. I knelt beside him. His hands were resting lightly on his stomach, the fingers spread. I squinted. The light here was dim. "What's the matter?" I asked softly.  
  


Nothing. I looked into his face. He was looking stubbornly past me at the far wall, through the far wall, through to the other end of Rivellon the way he was staring.  
  


I had to do another 'wash'—I wasn't quite over the last time with Ifan's claw injury, but if the Prince wasn't going to speak to me. . .  
  


And I understood why I hadn't seen any blood on his front, as I was expecting. Why he wasn't covering the injury with his hands the way people normally do—it was because the arrow—he had had his side turned to the archer-Trompdoy while he was fighting the other one. The arrow had gone through his left side and was peeking out of his right.  
  


"Ah," I whispered. It wasn't gory the way Ifan's wound had been, but I could already tell there were mountains of internal damage. Ribs again, lungs not just pierced but rent open along the bottom. Liver, but the liver's resilient, at least in humans. But the arrow had opened a hole in his stomach, which was leaking acid, and a bolt of terror lanced through me just thinking of that pain.  
  


I heard the last Trompdoy, the one with the sword and shield, disappear. Sebille came up behind me and clicked her tongue.  
  


"Well," she said lightly, "it's not bleeding."  
  


I shook my head. My teeth were chattering. "I need to borrow your dagger," I said in a voice that was cold and hazy and frayed. She handed one to me. I turned to the Prince. "I need—I need the shirt out of the way."  
  


". . .go on," he said, and his voice was as tiny as mine.  
  


He was wearing his ratty Sourcerer's robe tucked into a surprisingly new-looking pair of greaves; if the arrow had only dipped a little lower, the chainmail would have stopped a lot of the damage. I felt icy sweat pool in the small of my back as I cut away the robe, trying with all my might not to jostle either end of the arrow, but I brushed against it once or twice anyway—of course he wouldn't flinch, but all the same I felt a stab of guilt each time.  
  


"What do you need?" asked Sebille.  
  


"J-just as much water as you can find. Unless any of you are carry—carrying bandages or ointment."  
  


"Not me," said Sebille, and flitted away, taking Fane by the arm.  
  


Once the shirt was off I placed my palm on the Prince's chest. His heart was pounding—if he weren't a lizard, he would have been gasping for breath—and the scales beneath my hand were almost hot enough to burn me.   
  


"Your heart's pounding," I said.  
  


He shook his head, a very slow, small gesture. He still wouldn't look at me.  
  


"You should lie down," I breathed.  
  


". . .I can't. Not—on my back."  
  


I frowned. He curled his tail around us a little ways. "Oh!" I said, and sighed. "Rotten place for you to be hit."  
  


"Don't let me die," he said—a feeble little command. His eyes darted in my direction and then fled again.  
  


My heart dropped. I opened my mouth, but Sebille and Fane had come back with the water, which they'd poured into a cracked, mossy bucket that must have come from some old corner of the cave. "Anything else?" Sebille asked.  
  


"No," I said. "Yes. I need you to take off the tail of the arrow as clean as you can."  
  


She did—neither of her daggers was really made for the task, but she had a beltknife with teeth.  
  


"OK," I said. I cast a glance at the Red Prince, who had trained his gaze on the far wall again. "Fane?"  
  


"I warn you—"  
  


"I know. It's not magic. You need to sit there," I pointed at the head of the arrow, wickedly pointed and glistening with blood, "and hold on to the end. Sebille's going to push the other end, and you're going to pull it the rest of the way. _Slowly_ ," I emphasised. "I'll—I'll tell you to stop if I need to."  
  


"If you insist," he muttered. "But, for the record, I've never so much as touched an arrow wound."  
  


"That's fine," I said, feeling like I was outside of my body, watching myself give orders. "Er, we're going to do this. All right?"  
  


"I'm waiting," said Sebille.  
  


"Let's have it done," Fane sighed.  
  


"All right?" I insisted, and the Red Prince caught my eye and nodded. "On three, then." I counted three—the Prince squeezed his eyes shut as Sebille started to force the tailless arrow through his body. Since he couldn't lie down, he slumped—I shuffled forward on my knees, and he laid his head on my shoulder. I breathed in, and as soon as the arrow had passed through an area, I went after it, stopping the largest blood vessels first. It was a lot of tangled, terrified work. I tried to hold on to my strange calm.  
  


I wasn't close to finished when Fane set the arrow down, but Sebille dusted herself off and stood upright. "All right. We've wasted enough time—Fane and I are going to find the wand. Sunset is in two hours. If we don't return to shore _very_ soon, the Seekers are going to make their stand without us."  
  


"What if you run into that skeleton again?" I asked, looking over the Red Prince's shoulder at her.  
  


"We kill the bowman first," said Sebille grimly, and they left.  
  


The Prince and I sat in silence. I went on with my work, repaired the smaller severed vessels and broken flesh, closed one open lung and then another, drained the stomach acid and stopped the puncture, sorted out the shattered bottoms of the ribs the way I had with Ifan, and finally closed the skin on either side.   
  


I took a few deep breaths. He was still leaning heavily on me, and he took his time about sitting up. We looked one another in the eye.  
  


"How do you feel?" I asked. "Is there anything I missed?"  
  


He shook his head.  
  


"You might bruise," I said quietly. "There's not a lot I can do about that. Er, I would tell you to try and sleep on your back, but. . ."  
  


"Allow me to be very clear," he snapped, and the sudden sharpness of his voice surprised me. "You are at fault for this, and I categorically refuse to sit and endure your. . .condescending little attempts to alleviate your own guilt." He rose to his feet, and although the tattered remains of the robe dangled over the edge of his greaves, he looked every bit the part of royalty.  
  


"I'm sorry?" I said, dumbly, standing as well. I became aware of the faint burning in my leg, which I had been ignoring. "How am I at fault?"  
  


"Oh—have I overestimated your grasp of the painfully obvious? How grinding it is when you people continue to fall short of my feeblest expectation."  
  


"How am I at _fault?_ " I demanded.  
  


"It is fortunate for us all that Zorl-Stissa has given me the gift of patience. I shall be forward. If you had dealt with the archer—had made the _slightest_ use of the fact that he was paying attention to you not at all, then he would not have struck me. How is that, then? Are you beginning to see the light?"  
  


I stared at him—I was honestly dumbfounded by what a prick he was being. "I d—I _did_ deal with him. I was a second too late for you, but you're acting like I was the one holding the bow."  
  


"And you may as well have been!"  
  


I moved my mouth impotently. I wasn't even angry, just confused. "I'm sorry you were hurt. Yours was worse than Ifan's was, I think, and you were awake the entire time. I can't imagine."  
  


"You—"  
  


"But it's not—my—fault," I interrupted him.  
  


"I never dreamed I would find myself wishing for the company of the lout. But in the face of this— _rare_ calibre of incompetence, I can hardly do otherwise."  
  


He was probably right: Ifan would have killed the archer ten times faster than I did. "I think. . .you're taking something out on me, but I won't push."  
  


"Taking—what clandestine emotions do you suppose I'm concealing from you? Not all of us are skittish young women."  
  


"You _said_ —!" He had said 'don't let me die'. He glared at me, daring me to bring it up. I shook my head. "You don't have to be a skittish young woman to be frightened of dying."  
  


"Come. It's time we found the others, or else encountered their corpses and made haste for the shore."  
  


"OK," I shrugged. I rucked my robe up to the knee and splashed a bit of water over my leg, but I had no idea at all how to heal an electric shock. If there was anything to heal. Maybe it was just leftover pain.  
  


Neither of us had taken a step before the Red Prince stopped in his tracks. Not as though something had surprised him, but as though he'd been suddenly turned to stone. I called out, but he had his back to me. I walked around so I could look at him head-on. He was breathing. His eyes were open. I waved my hand in front of his face. Nothing.  
  


I thought—I don't know what I thought, I thought electric shock, I thought mental shock, I thought Trompdoy, thought evil magic, somewhere thought the Prince was playing some sort of obscure trick on me. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to follow after Fane and Sebille alone. I sat down and waited it out.  
  


It couldn't have been longer than a few minutes, but they were the longest minutes of—maybe not of my life, but they were some long bloody minutes. I sat on the cave floor and waited it out. I was torn between a million different courses of action (finding the others? Leaving and going back to the Sanctuary on my own? How late was it? Should I go straight to the meeting point? Should I stay and try to fix this?) and since the Red Prince wasn't disposed to cast any calming spells on me, I just sat there and sat there and sat there.  
  


Finally I saw him blink. "Where were you?" I burst out. "What the hell happened?"  
  


He touched the flats of his fingertips to his head and didn't speak for a short while. "Promising. Promising indeed," he pronounced.  
  


" _What's_ promising?"  
  


"Do stop snapping at my heels," he said flatly—his mind was somewhere else. "I find it thoroughly grates my nerves."  
  


"You just became a statue for a good while! You think that's normal?"  
  


"'Became a statue'. Hm." The Prince ran his palm along the side of his neck, working away some ache, maybe. "No, something tells me you are not the one to whom I should be addressing myself. Come."  
  


I grit my teeth and followed after him—but I didn't have to wait long for answers. Sebille and Fane met us halfway, both bearing sacks that jingled with gold, and Sebille with the Source wand tucked into her belt.  
  


"That skeleton has made his final dimwitted remark," she said darkly.  
  


"Tromp. . .doy," mused Fane. "What language is that supposed to be?" He shook his head and went on. "A more pertinent question, though: Divine insight, or hallucination? It seems unlikely that we just happened to have the same vision."  
  


"What god is there for the Undead?" Sebille wondered.  
  


Fane would have frowned at her if he'd had a face to do it with. "The relevant _god,_ if you like, although I think I prefer _despot_ —it was the lady Amadia. Incidentally I don't think my lack of flesh was the reason for her choice. Now. . ." He considered her. "The lord Tir-Cendelius was responsible for your lot, as I understand."  
  


"He was indeed," said Sebille. "For better or worse."  
  


"And I suppose he's as. . .'peaceable' and. . .'noble-hearted' as ever."  
  


She looked into his eyesockets, then at the glittering blue gem laid into his forehead, and into the dark sockets again. "Who are you, Fane? I'm getting the impression that the gods were your old school-mates."  
  


"Yes, er, we ought to save that question for later. I imagine it'll take some explaining, to a mortal."  
  


"Here is the question I want answered," the Red Prince cut in. "What reason did Amadia and Tir-Cendelius give for seeking you out in this manner?"  
  


Sebille stared him down. Fane had taken out a notebook and was scribbling busily.  
  


"You know, somehow I don't feel inclined to swap bawdy secrets with you. . .sire." She says 'sire' the way she says 'Master', lightly, with a controlled, _seething_ disgust.  
  


"And how bottomless is my regret." The Prince rolled his eyes. "Fine, then: Zorl-Stissa has begged that I become her Divine champion."  
  


"Hm," said Sebille coolly.  
  


"Interesting," muttered Fane, without looking up from his book, "Amadia seemed to have the same thing in mind for me."  
  


"Divinity." Sebille toyed with one of her daggers, polished the blade on her robe and sheathed it again.  
  


"When you say 'Divine'," I began faintly, "d'you mean Divine the way Lucian was Divine? Like Alexandar's going to be?"  
  


"Not if I have anything to say about it, he isn't." The Red Prince folded his arms over his bare chest. "I will make it my business to see the power of the Divine into deserving hands, and not those of some little human blaggard."  
  


"Your hands are deserving hands, then," scoffed Sebille. "It's adorable the way you come running the very instant a goddess snaps her fingers."  
  


"Zorl-Stissa has played her part. I shall be a god in my own right. . .I can see it already." He sounded almost dreamy. "All will be well."  
  


"It should be about sunset," Fane pointed out.   
  


"Past time that we left," said Sebille. "We should go north straightaway. There's no hope of reaching the Sanctuary first."  
  


"But what if they've gone without us?" I asked.  
  


"Why, we slink back to Fort Joy and await our. . ." The Prince paused for what felt like a long time, and the images of the staggering, Source-bled husks in the dungeons came back to me. ". . . _cure._ Do you find that agreeable?"  
  


I opened my mouth. He tilted his head, looking at me with wide, inquisitive eyes, as if he desperately wanted to hear my answer.   
  


"No," I said at last.  
  


"Good. Onward."  
  


We did make it to shore in the end—not entirely in time, the Seekers were already boarding the Magisters' boats, but the Magisters themselves were on the docks, fighting the other Sourcerers. I saw no sign of any Shriekers.  
  


Ifan had climbed up onto a wooden scaffold and was firing into a small throng of Magisters, scattering them. The dwarf pirate—the Beast of the Sea—was bashing some archer's head in with a metal shield, and Lohse—  
  


Lohse was crossing staves with Bishop Alexandar.  
  


We ran to join the fight. Sebille disappeared into the shadows—I caught sight of her again, standing behind a Magister who promptly fell to the ground, bleeding from his throat. I climbed one of the ruined stone walls and gathered a few ice shards (it's much easier when you have a staff to focus you), and dropped them onto an old, stooped Magister who bore a flaming wand in each hand. There was a tremendous CRACK as his spine shattered from the impact. I sobbed and swallowed bile.  
  


Soon enough it was just us and Alexandar. He was fast, and his spells hit hard—I got a white-hot fireball in my side that blistered and blackened the skin all the way down to my knee. Lohse he cracked in the head with his heavy wrought-iron staff, and her eyes went wide and she sank to the ground, her forehead suddenly dark with blood. I clambered down and ran toward her and dragged her out of the fray (head injuries are _bad_ news). The side of her head was properly caved in. I had the sudden sharp realisation that my healing book was at camp. I did what I could, that is to make sure no fluid was out of place and no bone was wedged inside, or pressing down on, her brain, and with my heart pounding I fused the fragments of her skull.  
  


Fane, meanwhile, had thrown a hell of a shock spell at the Bishop, and as he spasmed on the white stone floor, Ifan put a steel bolt in him (and another for good measure) and he went still, except for the blue sparks dancing between the twin bolts that rose proudly out of his chest.  
  


Then the giant Voidwoken worm burst out of the ground. (What did I tell you? THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE.)  
  


Someone was pushing something into my hand. I stopped gawking and turned my head. "Take the bastard's staff," Ifan was saying. "'s better you have it than him." I took it.  
  


The great worm-thing spat a huge, foul gob of something tarlike onto the ground and we scattered again, taking to the scaffolds or the ruined walls of the harbour. The fumes from whatever it was the worm had spat out were thick and sweet, and gave me an immediate, unbearable headache next to the screaming burn in my side.  
  


Sebille—I heard Ifan laugh with disbelief when he saw her. Sebille had leapt onto the back of the worm-beast, and was scaling its slippery height by stabbing her daggers into its flesh, lifting herself up a little ways, and then stabbing the other dagger just a little higher, carry on. (Her arms must be _amazing._ )  
  


The worm obviously wasn't having it and whipped from side to side, trying to shake her off. Then a white light surrounded the worm's ugly head and it went still, overtaken by an unnatural calm. I saw the Red Prince on the shore, his hand outstretched and shaking with the effort of keeping a being like that under his thumb.  
  


Sebille straddled the worm's head and sunk her daggers into the place where, in a normal animal, its brain would be. Again and again she did it, but the worm wouldn't fall, and I wondered if her daggers were too small by comparison? The sea was far away, but I thought I should test Alexandar's staff. I concentrated on the water, and tried to raise an ice shard from it. Just one, as long as it was big. I felt. . .something. Some sort of soul-deep excitement stirring in my gut. I opened my eyes and a monstrous, razor-sharp cone of ice was approaching us, at a leisurely pace. I strained to lift it higher.  
  


"Sebille!" shouted Ifan, having caught on what I was trying to do. "Get down!"  
  


She got down, smoothly as always, and just as the ice chunk was level with the worm's head, the Red Prince's charm wore off and the beast began to thrash again. I thought my heart was going to break out of my ribcage, it was beating so hard—I exhaled. I let the icicle drop.  
  


My eyes were closed. I heard a horrible, snarling scream and the sound of something very heavy hitting the earth. Ifan took my arm. We all limped and shuffled just as quickly as we could to the edge of the water, and the little rowboat that would take us to Dallis' ship.  
  


Someone stopped us: a tall elven woman with white hair and white garb like Gareth's, only. . .less like a uniform and more like she'd scavenged it piece by piece off of the corpses of her enemies.   
  


The Red Prince had taken point, of course, and so it was him she addressed. "Hm. I suppose you do have the look of some chosen one or other, don't you?" He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand and talked over him. "Don't bother. I'm Malady, and you're—" She seized one of his wrists, pulled it toward her and sunk a sharp canine into the pad of his little finger. "—Godwoken," she declared.  
  


He wrenched his hand away from her. "What in blazes do you think you're doing?"  
  


"It's only a little bite. I'm sure you'll be fine." She looked out at the lot of us. "Not all—one, two—seven of you?"  
  


"'f it's all the same, I'd rather ye didn't bite any chunks out of me, lass," said the Beast. (Beast? THE Beast. It sounds better with a 'the', doesn't it?)  
  


"Good thing for you we don't have time to form a blood donation queue," said Malady. "Before we go, though." She jabbed a long finger into the Prince's chest, and he calmly grabbed it and moved it aside. "Touchy. So what power have the gods given you, exactly?"  
  


He sighed, although he must have relished the chance to show off. "I receive my tutelage from the lips of Zorl-Stissa herself," he declared, and folded his hands. A blinding light seemed to fall from the sky onto him and only him, and the air thrummed with power, the sort that makes your heartbeat heavy. When the Prince spread his arms, the movement itself had something Divine about it. I had a hard time breathing.  
  


It was nothing like normal magic, nothing even like normal Sourcery, and Malady must have felt it, too. She herded us onto the tiny boat and we boarded the Lady Vengeance, Dallis' ship which had been untied from its moorings and floated a little ways off the coast. Gareth greeted us there.   
  


"Thank you ever so much for your help with the Magisters," said Sebille dryly.  
  


"The Seekers have lost enough," Gareth replied, in a wavering voice. He cleared his throat. "We had our own part to play, and we have played it. Besides, you all live; I seem to have left the task in capable hands."  
  


"We should move," said Ifan. He was unarmored and his shirt hung open. I saw why: his entire ribcage was one great wine-coloured bruise. "We can squabble out at sea."  
  


"Hear," said Malady, and clapped her hands twice. "Right. I'd go have a word with the ship if I were you. Mind you don't get burnt to a crisp. Or do," she shrugged. "There seem to be enough spares."  
  


Sebille was the first to move—she stalked ahead of us to the head of the ship, to which was affixed a great dragonlike neck, carved out of wood. I followed slowly after her.  
  


"She's been scarred," hissed Sebille. "The scar makes her reticent."  
  


"What?" I craned my neck. Sebille grabbed me by the back of my head and turned me so I was looking up at the wooden creature's cheek—engraved with a slave scar just like hers.  
  


"Hm," said the Red Prince, appearing behind us. "We have only to find the corresponding song, in that case."  
  


Sebille's hand moved, but she stopped short of grabbing her needle. "I won't be part of this."  
  


"By all means, leap overboard if it satisfies your principles, but _I_ intend to avoid a second rendezvous with the Divine Order today." He shook his head. "A moot point, at any rate, without the song."  
  


We combed the ship—"we" meaning the others combed the ship, and I claimed a little corner of the top deck for an infirmary. Many of the Seekers had died, and those that hadn't were in bad shape. The little boy was fine, and that was something, but there were several broken limbs, many burns and cuts, a few arrow wounds and one from a spear. (Matis got unlucky again.) Alexandar's fireball had scorched through the side of my robe and the burned skin complained every time I moved, but it was a bit of a waste of my energy when there were people with things sticking out of them to worry about.  
  


Ifan came up to see me—not because he wanted me to fix his bruises, I told him they were better left to heal by themselves, but to let me know in a tone full of fury that Alexandar had survived being stuck with two crossbow bolts and was being detained on the bottom deck. I followed him downstairs and sure enough, the Bishop was guttering like a fish in a torrent of his own blood, white-limbed and twitching, but alive.  
  


"You should heal him," his guard told me. "If Dallis comes after us, we have a hostage."  
  


"Could just toss him overboard," growled Ifan. "Let the sea have him."  
  


" _Can_ you heal him?" asked his cellmate, closing her fingers around the bars of her cage. "You must. It's your duty."  
  


"As a human?" I asked, biting my lip.  
  


"As a subject of Lucian, and an opponent of the Void. That man is the Divine. If he dies, girl, his blood is on your hands!"  
  


I bit my lip harder, looking from Ifan's dark face to the livid, wild-eyed Magister. ". . .can you open the cage?" I asked, in a small voice. Ifan fixed me with incredulous eyes. "You can always kill him later," I said quickly. Then, realising what I'd said, "I mean—I mean he might have information, and if I let him die, you can't change your mind later, and—"  
  


The cell door swung open on rusty, salt-crusted hinges. Someone had ripped the bolts out of Alexandar's chest and done much more damage in the process. His high, smooth forehead was damp with sweat, and his hair hung limp. It was the usual: ribs, lungs, heart (that was terrifying), replace what blood I could, seal the skin. Something fell to the ground when I moved his hands out of the way. Ifan circled around us and picked it up, a large gem on a chain. He pocketed it. I went back up to the top deck once I was sure Alexandar wasn't going to die (at least not from the bolts).  
  


Malady came to visit my makeshift infirmary—but only to take a bite out of my earlobe and tell me what I already knew: that I wasn't a full Godwoken, just a very lucky Sourcerer.  
  


After maybe an hour, Sebille and the Red Prince (who seemed to have found a new shirt somewhere in the hold) surfaced, the Prince carrying a great red book with gold fastenings. They approached the head of the ship and the Prince, apparently reading from the red book, sung to it.  
  


His voice was nice; warm, and tuneful, even if he was putting it to a sinister use. The ship—I had to pinch myself—the ship stirred, like a large animal slowly waking, and looked around at him.  
  


Then I understood: she was livewood—had been a free elf, had been reborn as a tree, had been hammered into a different shape and branded so she could serve Dallis. It makes me sick to think of existing like that; you can't even die. You're just wood and resin, and you have to serve for ever.  
  


"Am I to serve you as my new master?" the ship asked, dipping her head to the Red Prince.  
  


" _No,_ " said Sebille, and the word seemed louder than it really had been, her voice was so heavy with authority. She spoke in Elvish. " _You are free._ "  
  


" _Hm,_ " said the ship. " _I_ _t is good that you are kin. You understand._ "  
  


" _Better than you think,_ " replied Sebille, turning her face to show the ship her own scar. " _Forgive me for letting the lizard sing his miserable scar-song. I hated to do it._ "  
  


" _There is nothing to forgive, sister. You may tell the others that I will take you wherever you wish to go._ "  
  


"Enough of this," said the Red Prince. "You will convey us away from this accursed island."  
  


"I will," said the ship. I thought I heard a note of amusement, as if she and Sebille were sharing a joke at the Prince's expense.  
  


"Good. Now you and this glorified log may interpellate to your very hearts' desire, for all I care," he told Sebille, and left to find Malady.  
  


True to her word, the ship started to move when Malady gave the order, and I went to the middle deck to write this entry. A few more Seekers came to find me, sheepish, nursing dislocated arms or sprained fingers. I think my burn is going to leave a scar by now, a big, ugly one, but I can li


	9. Day 16 (???)

OK.  
  


We're in Driftwood. We got a room in the tavern, one for the four of us, since we hardly have two coins to scrape together.  
  


I stopped writing the last entry because Dallis and a small army of her walking horrors had taken the ship and stormed the top deck. I saw one of the Sourceless things, I found out today that people call them Silent Monks: I saw a Silent Monk with bolts in his joints, his body reordered and harnessed so that he was forced to walk on four legs, and he pounced and clawed and tore with his teeth like an animal.  
  


If that's what they've done to you, I am going to end myself. I'm putting it on paper as a promise. There's no way.  
  


So Dallis' people came. There was a thundering of footsteps and Ifan and I rushed upstairs.  
  


The top deck was a mess of fire and blades; Malady was casting some drawn-out Source spell, Sebille had just driven her dagger deep into the back of a Gheist (a big thing with drapes, sort of the early version of a Shrieker), and the Red Prince had placed himself between Malady and the approaching Monks.  
  


"I'm trying to get us out of here!" Malady called to me. "Be a dear and PROTECT ME."  
  


I had a bit of Source I was saving—I used it to cast the only Sourcery I know; a huge dome-shaped warding spell that enveloped me and Malady. After that, it was all I could do to help keep the others on their feet.   
  


And suddenly there was nothing. There was a lot of _pain_ —nothing was wrong with my body, but in my soul something like a deep, horrible grief, like I was tearing—and there was cold, and there was nothing.  
  


Everything was blue, was stone, was light—I walked forward the best I could—I came to what looked like a ghostly tree, at first, and as I approached I saw that a few spectral figures were knotted in its vines—or—tentacles. Arms of the Void. Slowly I came closer, looking into the face of the rightmost figure. He was a dwarf, glowing and decorated with a beard even more splendid than that of the Beast. I peered into his face, wondering—  
  


"Oh, child," said a soft voice in my ear. "Leave Duna in peace and come to your mother, won't you?"  
  


"Leave me, Godwoken," spluttered the dwarf—Duna—the _god,_ Duna. "My champion is vanquished."  
  


"Come," coaxed the voice, that of an older woman with a Mezdi lilt. I thought that was strange.   
  


In the centre of seven suspended gods was my mother. My mother, smiling and strangled and with strange tears running down her face that shimmered and changed in the light.  
  


" _Ahal, Safasafi,_ " she said. (My willow. My mum's name for me when I was small.)  
  


"Mum," I sniffled, and reached out to her. I didn't care where we were or why she was there. But I recoiled when I touched her—her skin was cold and dread to touch, steel or stone. I looked into her face, ethereal, bursting with light. "You're not her, are you."  
  


"Not. . .strictly, no," said the stranger, and the accent left her voice, and her face, my mother's face, became the perfect, impersonal face of a marble statue. "You cannot fathom your luck," she said. "You stand now before the All-Mother, Amadia."  
  


"I wish you hadn't taken my mother's face," was the first thing I thought to say—a reproach.  
  


"There are more important matters. I have called you here because you are my new champion, my most favoured." She peered into my eyes. "I chose your predecessors because they were not blinded by petty kinship to any race. What Rivellon needs now is not the domination of one people, but the triumph of order. The triumph of magic. It is a great task, but you must succeed, dearest one. _Safasaf_."  
  


"Don't."  
  


"I am your mother who transcends the fetter of flesh or the bond of blood. You will come to understand that in time." She took my hands in hers and I felt a small, dense pearl of Source coalesce in me, and I felt bigger inside, like a new hollow was in me, a home for the pearl. "This is my gift to you. Use it well."  
  


"Use it how?" I did a healing wash to see if my body really had changed inside, but nothing seemed different in the echoes of the particles that came back to me.  
  


Amadia laughed at my weak little spell. "I have found a champion of magic in you, I think. I will show you the use of my gift."  
  


She was still holding my hands. She interlaced our fingers and gripped me tightly, and I felt the Source pearl expand, as if it was emitting its own magic echo, until it became too huge and bright to contain, and Amadia and I were awash in white light. A blessing.   
  


She let go of me and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "I know you will not fail your mother."  
  


And I had no time to open my mouth before the world began to whirl and the next thing I knew was waking up on the top deck of the Lady Vengeance.   
  


I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  
  


We were flying, it seemed like, through an endless expanse of blue and light, but the sails were as still as death, the wind made no sound, even the chatter of passengers was gone.  
  


Warily, I descended into the middle deck. It was empty. Not just the Godwoken were gone, but all the Seekers and everyone else who'd been wandering around. I heard no noise from downstairs either. I wondered if I had died.  
  


Down I went to the bottom deck, my heart having dropped, as it felt, through the floor, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I saw three figures gathered, Source-blue and bright as the gods I'd seen in my vision. They were difficult to make out, shifting, as if I was looking at them through water.

Someone took my arm(—well, no. I felt the cold memory of touch on my arm). I looked down. "Look a' that," said the Beast of the Sea. "Fortune's no' buggered all of us, looks like."  
  


"Duna's champion," I said. "I'm so sorry."  
  


"It's nothin' to greet about. Be on yer happy way, lass." He paused. "Best o' luck wi' the Godwoken nonsense," he added, and winked.  
  


Lohse was less collected. Her face was twisted—she'd have been howling, if she could, as a ghost. "I can't do it any more—can't fix it, he—it's forever. It's forever. He won't stop, it—"  
  


"What can I do?" I urged her. "Who won't stop?"  
  


She only shook her head, and with the most heartbroken eyes I'd ever seen, she faded from view.  
  


The final ghost—I didn't recognise him at first. Fane was a skeleton—I knew that—but without all his billowing robes, there was so little of him.  
  


"Yes, yes," he said, before I had the chance to speak. "I seem to have entered a slightly less. . .corporeal state of being. For whatever that's worth. And _you_ have usurped my position as Amadia's champion."  
  


"I didn't mean to," I said. "I don't even want Divinity."  
  


"Yes, well. Do mind she doesn't lure you in with her. . .motherly approach. She's one of the Seven, and you'll take my word when I say that the Seven are a selfish bloody lot."  
  


I nodded uncertainly. "See you, I suppose."  
  


"You might at that. Undeath didn't keep me from my studies, I don't see why regular old death should do any worse."  
  


"If you're done nattering," bellowed Malady from the other end of the deck, her voice quivering with strain, "you need to get over here, little nursemaid, _NOW_ , or you'll stay in the Hall of Echoes with your pals!"  
  


I nearly tripped over my own feet running. Malady shot me a withering look as I joined her and the others in what had been Alexandar's cell, and then she brought the spell to an end.  
  


Again that biting pain soared from my toes to the top of my head, and the ship crashed into the water with a tremendous splash and a long, diminishing shudder.  
  


The moment we were certain we weren't going to capsize, Malady shooed us off the boat. Before I left, though, she sniffed at me, and then, to confirm her suspicion, bit me again. "Now that is interesting. What god laid claim to _you?_ "  
  


"Amadia," I said, surprised by my own bitterness. "Because I stand outside of any race, according to her."  
  


She grinned. "You know I think it'd be absolutely _fascinating_ to see a Divine of two races. Who knows, missing link between humans and elves, peace on earth, et cetera, et cetera."  
  


"I don't want to be Divine," I said yet again.  
  


"Eh, don't count yourself out just yet. Even if you don't want the grand prize, mastering the Source never hurt anyone. Well—" She began to correct herself, but decided against it. "Break a leg, anyway. Now shoo."  
  


We crowded onto the rickety little rowboat (by some miracle it had survived the trip through the Hall of Echoes) and went into Driftwood, just the four of us now. The Seekers, save for Gareth and the little boy, had all been left in the Hall of Echoes. I thought of Jules, who'd looked so surprised when we both realised he was going to live, his hand on my arm—and Matis' soft voice, calling me a wonder. And that elven boy who was on the point of becoming a Shrieker, and the dead dwarf with his smothering beard, who looked like wax except for the film of sweat on his forehead.  
I'm still thinking of them.  
  


Ifan got stopped by some little sprout who was passing on a message. Lone Wolf business, he told us afterward. We passed a wrecked Magister caravan, and later, at the entrance to the village, a few Magisters who wanted to hear our news.  
  


Obviously we didn't want trouble, so the Red Prince told them, with his usual impeccable confidence, that we'd seen nothing at all out of the ordinary, and we went through. We booked a room.  
  


"So," said Sebille lightly, placing herself cross-legged in a corner of the room, "what's next? We could have a friendly little fight to the death, and solve the riddle of Divinity here and now."  
  


"Pass," said Ifan, shooting her a dirty look.  
  


"It seems hardly sporting," said the Red Prince, "to rouse another ruction so soon after that fiasco on the Lady Vengeance."  
  


"Suits me," shrugged Sebille. "The last thing I will ever be is Tir-Cendelius' varlet."  
  


"Not even as an interim to your eclipsing him?" asked the Prince, idly.  
  


"Not even then," she said sharply. "I am. . .Godwoken. The God has woken me. What I do, now that my eyes are open, is my affair."  
  


"Rousing. Truly." The Red Prince made a point of suppressing a yawn. "I have heard quite enough palaver for one day. We'll go and speak to this Meistr."  
  


" _You_ are a free lizard," Sebille told him, with a shallow, vicious smile. " _I_ am going to eat, sleep and tomorrow, I'm going to find myself something decent to wear. Then, I'm going to have a little chat with a certain Lone Wolf to the north."  
  


"I'm keen to talk to Roost myself," agreed Ifan. "Rather do it before the Lone Wolves put a price on my head."  
  


"And you?" asked the Red Prince, spearing me with his gaze like fire. "Do you intend to trail after us Godwoken?"  
  


"I think. . .I think I'm one, too," I said, in a very small voice.  
  


Sebille rose and approached me. She bit deep into the pad of my thumb, which seems like an unnecessarily sensitive spot to choose.  
  


"I wish people would take me at my word instead of just biting me," I muttered, wiping my bleeding thumb on my leg.  
  


"Can't be helped, I fear, darling. Which god was it, as a matter of interest?"  
  


"Amadia," I said, as I'd told Malady. "She thinks I can be rational because I'm not—bound to one race."  
  


"How novel," said the Red Prince. "An _ancillary_ Godwoken has been summoned into the fray for an accident of birth."  
  


"Being a Godwoken at all is an accident of birth," Ifan pointed out.  
  


"I don't want to be Divine," I said for the so many-eth time. "I just want to go. . .to Arx. Home."  
  


"In that case," began the Red Prince, "I would earnestly suggest you walk north. It may even be the safer of two perilous paths."  
  


I held his gaze for a second to see if he was being serious. We both knew I'd run into a bear or something and get torn to little bits before you could blink. "I'd like to take the night to think."  
  


"That's three to one. A tidy victory," said Sebille.  
  


"And if this were a democracy, and you were my peers, I would happily submit to the verdict," sneered the Red Prince.  
  


Sebille simpered. "I see. Then have an excellent night, _my prince_. Come back an artist of Source, and blow us all away with wonder. Or stay gone."  
  


The Red Prince forced a laugh, two snide syllables, _ha-ha_. "Does it please you to bark orders at me, little elf?" I suppose it was easier for him to call her 'little' now she was sitting down. Standing, she towered over him.  
  


" _E_ _nough,_ " snapped Ifan.   
  


"Shall I go and order some food?" I suggested. "If we're all staying the night."  
  


The Prince turned to me and scoffed. "If you were crystal, you would yet be more opaque. But abscond, if you must, with what little coin we have; I don't expect it'll be consequential in the end."  
  


"I— _what?_ "  
  


"Now don't play the wounded party."  
  


I shook my head. "Well—just give me—what, a few coppers, then? If that's what you think." I was irritated how much his distrust hurt me, and I lashed out like an angry child. "Or send someone else. I don't care. You must get tired, expecting a knife in the back from everyone, all the time. I don't have the energy."  
  


"But you _are_ dedicated," he said, studying me. "If you were sent to plant a knife in my back, it might be the least fatuous attempt my adversaries have made to date."  
  


"Stop it," I snapped.  
  


"You're proving my point handily," he replied, quietly delighted that he was getting under my skin. "So doe-eyed—to believe you, without reservation, would demand a greater feat of self-deception than I could muster."  
  


Ifan, with a pointed look at the Prince, unclipped his coin pouch from his belt and tossed the whole thing to me. (Not that there was much in it.) I hurried downstairs. It was a relief to be down in the main part of the inn, though, alone among strangers, no one staring after me.  
  


I ordered four stews, and an ale for myself. (Probably made it look like I was going to eat them all singlehandedly.) Sat down somewhere in a corner and laid my head on the table, listening to the various sounds of the tavern. Soothing, in its way, like the sea.  
  


The waiter tapped me on the shoulder. "You've a few people upstairs, have you?"  
  


"Yeah," I said. "I'm going to bring the food up there, if that's all right."  
  


"Any elves? Cook wants t'know. Don't ask me."  
  


"One," I said. "Wait—why?"  
  


"I said don't ask me. Got different tastes or something. Search me."  
  


"Oh. Yeah—one," I decided. My pick is always the human food—you know I respect the whole flesh thing, but. . .it's not for me. Or, I don't know if I could even do it. Might poison me, for all I know. (Well—I found out very shortly afterwards: yes, I can do it, sort of, and no, it doesn't poison me.)  
  


I brought the stuff up, three bowls with pink chunks of what I guessed was pork, and the fourth with darker meat cut into strips.  
  


"Thank you, darling," said Sebille, when I came back. Her eye fell on my ale. "You know, I wouldn't turn down one of those right now."  
  


"I'll be right back, then," I said.  
  


"No, I'll get it," said Ifan. "Stretch my legs a little."  
  


He came back with three bottles. Sebille rose and, smiling sweetly, took two of them out of his hands and set them down beside her.  
  


"Hey!" he protested, grinning. "Should have said so before."  
  


Sebille held up one bottle and swirled its contents around. It was yellower stuff than I'm used to, the colour of clear honey. She put it on her other side, so that it stood between her and Ifan. "I'm nothing if not fair-minded, so we'll share this one."  
  


Ifan relented, still smiling, and sat down.  
  


I had a few bites of the stew; I only got broth and potatoes, but it was good. I fished for a piece of meat—and the instant my teeth broke into it, I had a headache like a spear and in my mind's eye, in the same black place where you normally see your dreams at night, I saw images. Fragments—shards—I was a Magister, I was at the birth of my first child, it was raining, Driftwood, blood, _terror_ and nothing.  
  


"Too spicy?" teased Sebille. (The stuff was barely more than potatoes in water.)  
  


I shook my head. I didn't know how to articulate what I'd just felt. "Is yours funny at all?"  
  


"Funny?"  
  


"Does it—do you get flashes? Is it giving you a headache?"  
  


" _Shite,_ " said Ifan straight away, setting his bowl down as if it had burned him.  
  


Sebille's face darkened and she held out her hand for my bowl. She closed her eyes once she'd had a piece of the strange meat. "Hm," she said at last. "The cook's added a special ingredient, as it seems."  
  


"Oh," I said. "But. . ."  
  


"Don't tell me this was your first time," smirked Sebille. She gave her own bowl a long look. "What a shame. We'll have to request fresh ones."  
  


"Excellent," sighed the Red Prince, seeming not the slightest bit shaken as he put down his spoon. "The only establishment in this pedestrian little hamlet. . ."  
  


"Wait—wait," I said, "does. . .can you tell if. . .I mean—I saw a Magister and—he was _killed_ , wasn't he?"  
  


"Mm," said Sebille. "And too bad. Tir-Cendelius and I have had our fallings-out, but I can't make a meal of flesh not freely given. Are you all right, dearest? You're positively green," she added, glancing at Ifan, who had paled several shades and was staring with pursed lips into the middle distance.  
  


"Been better," he said, as shortly as possible.  
  


Sebille nudged their shared bottle of ale toward him. "Chase it with something sweet." He didn't make a move. "Or, go and oust the unwelcome guest."  
  


"Yeah," he said, and left.  
  


"It'll be all right," said Sebille, watching me stare after him. "I'm surprised the lord Magister agreed with you so."  
  


I shuddered. "Could you not put it like that?"  
  


"I can put it whichever way you like, darling," she said.  
  


"We should eat something, though," I said. "Could we get them without the meat?"  
  


"At that rate," said the Red Prince, "we shall be treated to a bowl of hot water each."  
  


I thought about that. "If we had enough water—and flour and oil, we could make bread. Not—not _great_ bread, mind, but filling. We'd need a stone, and some way to heat it, but I don't think that'll be a problem."  
  


"It isn't such a bad idea to carry a few provisions from here on," agreed Sebille. "Then we can make a bread-oven of any old rock on the road."  
  


"A passably elegant solution for the hunger pangs of the future," the Red Prince pointed out, "but it won't do for the moment."  
  


Sebille finished the last of her ale (she left the one she was sharing with Ifan half-full) and stood.   
  


"Are—" I began. "Are we going to do anything about the man that was murdered?"  
  


"A Magister," said Sebille, shrugging one shoulder. "I don't see why I should care." She stopped in the doorway. "I'm going to go after that one. We'll see what sort of non-sentient food we can find on the way."  
  


I shuffled into the corner Sebille had just left, and laid my head back against the wall. A mistake, I think—the instant I stopped moving, it was like everything hit me at once, you and Godwoken and Silent Monks and _why_ was my side so fucking sore—it was the burn Alexandar had given me, which I'd never gotten around to healing.   
  


My robe was in the way. (That whole skin contact thing with Hydrosophy isn't always convenient. Sometimes I wonder what I'll do if I meet someone who's taken an arrow in his arse.) I was wearing trousers, thank the gods for Kerban, but I wasn't about to strip to the waist in front of the Red Prince. Well. Maybe I was.  
  


I cleared my throat. "Er, I have this burn in my side I haven't had the chance to heal—but I need to take off my robe. Do you mind? I'll face the wall."  
  


I don't know what I was expecting—maybe I was hoping he'd offer to take a brief walk, but I doubted that. Either way I wasn't counting on the simple "by all means" as his eyes bored into mine.  
  


"Right," I said. "OK." I stood in the opposite corner, smiling to myself—you remember in the schoolhouse when you'd mouth off and they'd put you on a little stool with your face to the corner?  
  


"That is going to leave a scar," the Red Prince said, as I pulled the robe up over my head, "if I am any judge."  
  


"Yeah," I said, instantly going red-hot in the face. Why did I bother hoping he'd keep his eyes and his comments to himself? "I left it too long. It's started to heal by itself."  
  


"In its imperfect way."  
  


"Mm." It was a few layers of skin, mostly shallow, but sprawling. Red, peeling skin crept up past my shoulder blade. Just above my hip was where the fire had dug in the deepest. I closed whatever was raw; I can't produce flesh out of thin air. It looks rough there now, like an unworn stone.   
  


"I suppose I ought to extend my belated thanks," the Red Prince began as I worked. "For your healing me, earlier."  
  


"You hadn't ought to do anything," I shrugged.  
  


"'Oughtn't'. I resent 'had ought'."  
  


"You _hadn't ought_ to do anything," I repeated, grinning to myself. "If you're thanking me just because, and not as some sort of insurance, then you're welcome."  
  


"How you over-complicate the most minute matters."  
  


"Well, sorry," I said. "Is this you dealing with an insubordinate again? It's not—I'm not going to refuse to cast on you if I think you're an arsehole. You don't need to strategise."  
  


"Weren't you making a great furor, minutes ago, out of choosing trust over hostility?" he asked. "So trust in my intent for a moment. As an exercise of thought."  
  


"OK." I stretched my arms out for a bit and went back to healing the burn. "Maybe I'm a bit snippy these days. I'm preoccupied."  
  


"So preoccupied with the simple prospect of returning home?"  
  


I laughed. "Isn't that the only thing on your mind?"  
  


"There is no comparison between Arx—some insipid false metropolis whose only claim to fame is its hosting of Lucian's anointed carcass—and my Empire."  
  


"It doesn't matter," I said. "It's not Arx. Not entirely, anyway." I ran my hand over my side one final time, put on the robe again and sat on the nearby bed. The Red Prince was on the floor, cross-legged and straight-backed. "I had a. . .well, her name was—is—Ulara turned herself in to the Sourcerers a few months ago. I was hoping to find her in Fort Joy."  
  


"Another lover, this Ulara?" The Red Prince canted his head in my direction. I wondered if this was him actually showing an interest in something I had to say.  
  


"Yes," I said. "Well. We've known each other all our lives. Peas in a pod, if you like. I—don't know what'll happen if something—if they did something to her." I pulled the cover off of the bed and draped it around me, suddenly cold. "I miss home, but it won't be home if she isn't there. I might as well stay here and learn healing and make bread."  
  


"Not with the Divine Order after us." He hummed to himself—like he usually does when he's thinking. "Abominable luck, really, for one such as you to be coerced into the ranks of Godwoken at the very last moment."  
  


"Well, 'coerced'. . ." I thought of my meeting with Amadia. "Maybe that is the word, actually. Her motherly disappointment is very powerful."  
  


"That has long numbered one of the few questions whose answers elude my understanding. Elves and dwarves as well as humans— _why,_ given the choice, would you venerate some absentee parental figure who will only put in an appearance in order to chastise you? Do you collectively enjoy the act of self-abuse?"  
  


"It's just how gods are, isn't it?" I took my hair out of its bun and tried to run my fingers through it, wishing for a comb. "What's Zorl-Stissa like?"  
  


He thought about that. ". . .like an empress," he decided after a while. "In the Empire, weak, unworthy rulers are simply not tolerated. Zorl-Stissa, then, is the worthiest ruler the Empire will ever see. Beautiful, powerful, learned. . .perfect."  
  


" _Ancestors, perfect me,_ " I recited.  
  


"Precisely," he said, throwing me a questioning look. "She is that ideal to which the common folk aspire."  
  


I nodded. "Rahim taught me the prayer," I said, by way of an explanation. "He was so homesick when I met him. Made him happy to tell me about all the little things he missed. Since you brought it up," I barrelled on, "how do you feel? There's nothing I missed?"  
  


"The selfsame question you put to me earlier."  
  


"Well, I don't know. You were afraid earlier."  
  


" _Afraid,_ " he repeated, his voice ringing with indignation. "If that smallest of cracks in my bearing was your intimation of _fear,_ then you, little quasi-Godwoken, have been in the throes of terror from the very hour you set foot on that ship."  
  


I put up my hands. "Fine. 'Scuse me. If nothing's wrong, then nothing's wrong."   
  


The Red Prince shot me a contemptuous look, laid his greatsword in his lap and started polishing the grime off of its blade. I crossed the room and found my logbook and put it beside me, but didn't open it for the moment.   
  


"He made—Rahim—he wasn't a very big fish in the Empire," I risked. "His life wasn't easy, but sometimes the way he'd talk about it, he'd make me think it was _my_ lost home."  
  


"Small wonder."  
  


"Few things in common with Mezd," I murmured. "Hot weather. Mangoes. Little sand-snakes. No fiddlecrabs, though. No great rivers."  
  


"One," he corrected me. "The Xrdz. Along with the great moat which borders the Forbidden City, although that was constructed."  
  


"I don't know how you wrap your tongues around names like that."  
  


"I would recommend, then, that you refrain from trying. Your screeching, squawking approximation thoroughly offends the ear."  
  


"I haven't even said anything!"  
  


"My meaning was 'you' in the plural sense—which is to indicate all members of the lesser races. That ambiguity represents yet another flaw of this Eastern Common."  
  


". . .Khrdz."  
  


"Horrendous."  
  


"Xr. . .dezz. D'z."  
  


"Execrable."  
  


"X—ex. . .r—exr. . .d'z." I grinned. "I can't do that damn click."  
  


"What click? You are trying desperately to place one where there is none."  
  


"Not in this one," I muttered. "I suppose you miss home, too—you know, any dreams of. . .conquering it aside."  
  


"I think of it as laying claim to my birthright." He turned the sword over in his hands, looking over it with far more care than that beaten-up old blade deserves.  
  


"But you do miss it," I said.  
  


"More than words can express—particularly these boorish words."  
  


I yawned. "You can try me in Elvish. Or in Mezdi."  
  


"I think I shan't." He paused. "To spend another day in my city. . .marble—immaculate—as far as the eye can see. Enormous beds dressed with cushions and silks. Everywhere incense or perfumed wax. And the servants, of course, waiting hand and foot on their Prince. Along with the courtesans."  
  


I bit my lip. "Lots of those, I expect."  
  


"Many. Each extraordinarily beautiful, and skilled, and dignified. Only one woman on the highest rung of their ladder was not kin."  
  


"Oh?"  
  


"A human woman. Tall," he said slowly and deliberately, as if savouring the memory, "white as a jasmine petal with long slender limbs, and hair the sight of which would drive a goldsmith to tears. No ranking member of War or Law would dream of a coupling with a human—but those who dared it, without fail, sought her."  
  


"She sounds lovely," I said absently. She sounded like my opposite in every possible way. I don't know why that stung.   
  


"She was something different. There was a time in my life when I reviled all that was predictable, was safe. I longed to forge my own path."  
  


"And are you much different now?"  
  


"Hm. I suppose not. Evidently the human woman didn't hold my interest for ever. There was another frontier I had not come up against."  
  


"And that was demons." I played nonchalant. I rummaged through the drawers of the nightstand. No one would have left a comb in there, but I rummaged anyway.   
  


"Eventually."  
  


"Is that all it's ever been? Testing your limits?" I left the nightstand alone. "Loads of people over here think that lizards don't know love, but I know that isn't true. At least not. . .for commoners."  
  


His face changed. I thought maybe I was going to get something good out of him, but then we heard Ifan's heavy footsteps and he and Sebille spilled into the room.  
  


"Are you any better?" I asked. He looked bad; glassy-eyed and unsteady.  
  


"Word to the wise," said Ifan, "if all your ribs have been pummeled. . . _don't_ toss up your lunch. 's not a good feeling."  
  


My heart sank. "I'm sorry. Maybe we can find something for the bruises tomorrow."  
  


"You really can't fix 'em?"  
  


"I don't know." I fiddled with my robe. "The book said something about doing all the little ones, all the time, it might stunt the body's own ability to heal. . .I don't want to risk that."  
  


"OK. Fair enough." He unbuttoned his shirt and now the dark-red bruises were black in places.  
  


"You'll live," said Sebille, stepping around him and setting down the plate she was holding in the middle of the floor. "We had a lovely little chat with the cook while we were downstairs. Out of the kindness of her heart, she offered us a different sort of meal."  
  


"Sebille pulled the needle on her," explained Ifan, dropping onto one of the beds.  
  


"Well, darling, you're free to abstain—again—if it doesn't please your moral compass. Shall we find you some nice grass cuttings?"  
  


Ifan half-sat up. "Didn't mean anything by it."  
  


She shot him a reassuring smile, warmer than I'd seen from her before. "I know."  
  


I was eyeing the food, meanwhile. It looked amazing compared to the slapdash dinners we'd been having the past weeks. A few large, soft pocket-breads and a buttery curry with pieces of chicken in it. (I didn't get memory flashes, so I assume it was just chicken.)  
  


Once we'd (finally) eaten, we went over our plan of attack for the next day.  
  


"I was told that a Dreamer by the name of Brahmos would be here," said the Red Prince. "I have seen not a vestige of his presence."  
  


"Well, is he a drudanae fiend?" grinned Ifan, knowing the answer.  
  


"To the extent that any Dreamer could be described as such."  
  


"Then you want the Undertavern." Ifan glanced at Sebille. "You and I need to have words with old Roost, and you—" He pointed at me.  
  


"We need to find that Meistr person, too, don't we?" I asked. "And Roost?" I asked. "D'you know where to find him?"  
  


"Yep. Ran into an old friend while we were out. Lone Wolves've set up camp about twenty miles to the north."  
  


"That's a full day's march," pointed out Sebille. "Either direction."  
  


"This Meistr ought to be nearby, at any rate," said the Red Prince. "We were given to understand that she lives here in Driftwood."  
  


"'d kill for a map right now," muttered Ifan. "Rough draft is this: we hit the Undertavern, ask around for the Prince's guy, then we find the Meistr and see what she has to say."  
  


"And Roost?" demanded Sebille.  
  


"After," he promised. "I don't want him getting away any more than you do."  
  


The Red Prince cleared his throat. "Having accepted that the hunt for your Roost will claim two full days of our time, it would be hardly apt to travel as a unit. Doubtless there will be other things that require our attention in the interim."  
  


"We'll talk it out when we get there," Ifan decided. "Also depends what we get out of the Undertavern."  
  


"Well," said Sebille. "That seems a fine note to end our night on, doesn't it?" She sprang to her feet and moved to the corner of the room on the hinge-side of the door—so she'd be out of the sight-line of any intruders, I guess.  
  


We'd gotten a room with two beds to spare the money. I'd been sitting on the foot of the bed Ifan was lying in, but I stood up now and dusted my robe. I chose a spot on the floor beneath the window; I liked the blue square of moonlight there.  
  


"Neither of you want a bed?" asked Ifan.  
  


"Wasted on me, dearest," smiled Sebille. "I don't quite sleep."  
  


"Saf?"  
  


"You're hurt," I said.   
  


He waved me off. "It's—"  
  


"And I don't mind," I interrupted. "We've been sleeping on some floor or another for the past however many days, anyway."  
  


"Well, cheers," he said, and tossed his pillow at me.  
  


I held it up for Sebille to see.   
  


"I'll take that, if you don't mind," she said, in a tone advising me not to protest.  
  


I passed it to her and she put it up behind her head as she sat upright in the corner.  
  


"Do you. . .sleep sitting up?" I asked.  
  


She smiled at me—I was beginning to realise that she had an arsenal of subtly different smiles. This one was thin and disquieting, and offered without comment.  
  


"I must be parted with this loathsome duvet," said the Red Prince, who had, as expected, laid claim to the other bed without asking or being asked. "Scabrous, suffocating thing."  
  


"I'll take it. Unless—unless you want it," I told Sebille.  
  


"All yours."  
  


"Are you sure? We could share if—"  
  


"I like my space at night, sweetness," she cut in. "It's all yours."  
  


"Take mine?" Ifan offered halfheartedly—not to be outdone by the Red Prince.  
  


" _You_ should take your rest as well as you can get it, old man," teased Sebille, shaking her head no.  
  


He yawned. "'f you say so."  
  


"Sleep sweetly," she said.  
  


"Come, then," the Prince directed me, rising from the bed, and I stood. He watched me closely as I gathered the blanket in my arms—it was warm in places, he'd been on top of it. His eyes seemed to give off an amber glow of their own in the dim light of the room.  
  


"Thanks," I said, and eyed the last couple of candles, now just puddles of wax stuck with wicks. "Shall I blow these out?"  
  


"'ve got it," mumbled Ifan, leaning up on one elbow and pinching out each flame with his fingers, and then falling back into bed—I guess he forgot about the bruises, because when he landed I heard a groan and a small but heartfelt _'fuck'_.  
  


I settled on the floor, next to the patch of moonlight. That whole night the moon was bright enough for me to make out Sebille, upright in her corner, breathing shallowly. Safe to say I didn't sleep much better than she did.


	10. Day 17 (?)

This has been a day.  
  


We got up around mid-morning—I could have slept past noon, but we had lots of things to slog through and not a lot of time. . .at least, the threat of Dallis in the backs of our minds was enough not to make us want to dawdle.  
  


None of us were eager for a repeat of the stew incident, so we went out for breakfast—nobody really had any fresh produce to spare (times being what they are, I guess), but the miller sold us some old flour, and there was a man selling sundries in the town square who happened to have some sunflower oil on hand. (I prefer olive, but you don't get many olives in this part of Rivellon). So we had bread. It wasn't bad, but it was pouring rain outside, and we hadn't wrapped the flour well enough, so we had lumps.  
  


Obviously we had to have a look around the Undertavern, so we went back to the inn, and there was a dwarf stood up on a table reciting a sonnet, and he stopped the Red Prince and asked a 'small consideration' to write a poem in his honour.  
  


The Prince glanced at him as though the bard was something unpleasant he had just stepped in. "You ought to be paying _me._ The 'consideration' of the Red Prince is no small privilege."  
  


The bard changed his tack so quickly it made my head spin. 'But of course', 'meant no disrespect' and all that. "It would be my highest honour," he said, "to shape the music of language in your noble image, my Prince."  
  


"How nice for you. Unfortunately, it happens that I detest sonnets."  
  


"Not a sonnet!" the bard insisted. "Nothing so plebeian for your esteemed ears, I assure you! A series of couplets, more like. I'd ask only for an answer to three wonders of mine. Just to give me something to work with, of course, my lord."  
  


Behind us, Ifan sighed. "We don't have time for riddles."  
  


Sebille said nothing. I was curious about these questions; I thought maybe so was she.  
  


And it didn't take that long in the end, but I was glad I stayed to listen. The bard's first question was, predictably, about the keeping of slaves in the Ancient Empire. Whether it was right.  
  


And the Red Prince only chuckled. "What a fascinating question for the Prince of the House of War. Will I wail and wring my skirts for the lot of the lesser races? Perhaps we should tear down the very walls of the Forbidden City, in order to redress the issue from its temporal root. Does the prospect please your ear, my good man?"  
  


"Only the truth pleases these ears," murmured the bard. "I beg you step away from the sensible, my lord. Without any thought to the consequences, simply the—er—hypothetical— _ideal_ of the thing. Yes?"  
  


"The 'hypothetical ideal'. I see." The Prince tapped a clawed finger to his lip and pretended to think very hard. "In theory, where is the issue in toppling the Empire itself? Never mind that chaos would reign supreme—never mind that the most empty-headed, thick-skulled chaff would scramble for whatever crumb of power they might seize upon, and all our grandeur would be cast to the Void—I—" He paused. I was the only one near enough, in the racket of the inn, to hear him hum to himself. "In theory," he said at last, in an artfully calm tone, "why not butcher children? No children will come to true harm, after all. Why not smith our swords out of glass? The question is as inane as the mind which concocted it, I fear."  
  


"Sorry to hear that, although I thank you for your answer." The bard cleared his throat. "Might be you'll find my second question disagreeable, then, but I'll ask it anyway, by your leave, of course."  
  


"Ask."  
  


"Well, as an artist, I take a personal interest in—that is—the arts."  
  


"Do you."  
  


"And as such, I know that the Ancient Empire keeps its artists—its—painters, its poets, its playwrights—on a short. . .leash, if you'll pardon my frankness. And it seems to lead, this lead seems to—" He coughed. "—well, it seems that much of the art which comes out of the Ancient Empire, as a result, is a bit. . .well, it's all fitted more or less to the same mold, if you catch my drift, sire, and so the question that I put to you is—"  
  


"Do I think the arts would benefit if the Empire was more sparing with its censure?"  
  


"Well—yes."  
  


"Certainly. Alas, aesthetic pleasure is not our sole concern. How facile, how sweet the temptation for a wayward poet to write some misguided protest piece or other, and how needless the grief of his family when the Empire is forced to silence him. It's asinine, really, a cavalcade of would-be heroes, agents of change, waving their banners one moment and snuffed out in the next. No—better to nip that sort of thing in the bud. Unless, of course, you want to prattle about the hypothetical _ideal_ of the thing. In which event. . .I admit that the literary canon of the Empire can be. . .trying, at times, in its uniformity. But there is no other way."  
  


"Hm. Thank you very much indeed, my lord. Will you hear my final question?"  
  


"Go on. I will, of course, answer it at my discretion."  
  


"Of course. Well. It is the simplest and the most complicated question of them all: do you—believe in love, your Majesty? I mean useless love. No transactions of money or power, and no lust, at least not solely. Just. . .love. And if you had it, what is love to ambition? To conquest? Does she fall to the wayside? Or is she the conqueror?"  
  


"Hm." The Red Prince looked away from the bard for the first time so far—this time he really was thinking hard. "Even. . .should I recognize love as an extant force, I must also recognize, as you say, its utter, utter uselessness. I cannot afford to busy myself with useless things—not I, who have an Empire to win. That is my third and final answer."  
  


The bard thanked him thoroughly and promised to have his couplets written up and ready for performance very soon. In the meantime, we went into the Undertavern (finally); a damp, dark place that reeked of drudanae. There was so much of it in the air, you might start to get lightheaded if you stayed down there too long. I didn't have time to find out, we kept our visit pretty short.  
  


A lizard stopped the Red Prince—a very old, very shaky little fellow with pale scales that might have once been blue or green, who introduced himself as a member of the House of Dreams. He reminded me of the cook on the slave ship, the horse-like, unquiet, tossing her head. He dipped lower before the Prince than I'd ever seen anyone bow to anyone, and when he said _my lord_ he might as well have been saying _my God_ , if that makes sense. Anyway the blue—the Dreamer, he told the Prince that his Brahmos had fled east—far east, a bit less than a day's march—because no part of this fucking nightmare is allowed to be easy and straightforward.  
  


The moment he heard, Ifan went off to look for whoever it was he wanted to talk to. I suppose he was cobbling together a new plan of attack in his mind. Sebille, for her part, struck up a conversation with the drudanae lady.  
  


"Does everyone treat you like that?" I asked the Prince. "I mean, everyone? All the time?"  
  


"Was that a question for me?" he asked lightly.  
  


". . .yes?"  
  


"Did your mother never teach you to speak with two words?"  
  


I blinked. "What two words?"  
  


"What two words indeed," he said, almost under his breath, and almost smiling. "Yes. The Empire prescribes a certain standard of etiquette in colloquy with a Prince. And of course, I am no ordinary Prince."  
  


"But all that stuff about how the whole House of Dreams worships you and you're going to fulfill your destiny and—"  
  


"Perfectly common. Although I'll profess it is music to my ears every time."  
  


"Hm."  
  


"What are you thinking of?" he prodded, and now there was an unmistakeable note of amusement in his voice.  
  


"Nothing. Well. This explains a lot about you, I think."  
  


"Which is to say, my unshakeable confidence and effortless leadership?"  
  


_Which is to say, your enormous head._ Rhalic's sweaty sack, Ula, I wanted to say it. I did. "Mm-hm," I said instead, like a coward. "It must be nice."  
  


"Being worshipped? I hardly took you for the type."  
  


"No," I said, sitting down in the midst of a small pillow-nest. (The Undertavern is nice in that there are so many carpets and soft things on the floors that you can make yourself comfortable anywhere. I almost wished for a little drudanae.) "I mean it. . .must be nice to have. . .confidence. . .baked into you. Self-worth. From the first second. I mean. . ." I stopped. What did I mean? "I mean, so many people do these terrible things, or they let their lives go to the Void, because they don't think they're worth anything, because they think they're ugly or evil or—you know, not—good for anything. I bet you can't imagine that. Not liking yourself."  
  


"I will bear no responsibility for the weak character of another," he said, taking his scabbard off his back and sitting nearby. I thought I caught the tiniest wince as he did.  
  


"Is that arrow still bothering you?" I asked, straightening.  
  


"No," he said, just a little too quickly.   
  


I'd have done a Hydrosophic wash if I had any water. "Can I have a look the next time we have water? Even if—even if it's just for my own peace."  
  


"Your peace."  
  


"Of mind," I added.  
  


He sighed and turned the sheathed greatsword around in his hands. "If we chance upon suitable water, and if you do not, by some happy miracle, falter in your persistence by that time."  
  


"Thank you."   
  


"Quite."  
  


Ifan came back with a map of Reaper's Coast. It didn't look like it was etched by an mapmaker, but it might have been drawn up quickly by someone who knew the area. He and Sebille sat with us and he spread the map on the carpet, twirling a long, thin piece of charcoal.  
  


"Here," he said, "is us. Driftwood. Here's your paladin camp," he told the Prince, marking a spot on the right end of the map, "and here's Roost." From the paladin camp, he moved his hand northward a ways and circled a spot that looked like a clearing between two canopies. "The Meistr's in Driftwood, and I might have a lead on a Source guy. Mordus. But it's a bloody hike out of our way." He scratched a little 'M' somewhere on the left end of the map. "So whatever else happens, we find the Meistr first. After that, Brahmos to the east. Then, if nothing changes, we head north to find Roost. Then maybe we can see about Mordus. Sound good?"  
  


I nodded. I didn't especially care what we did first.  
  


"Naturally the quest for Divinity is one of great import," began the Red Prince, "but I fail to see why we should ever take this Malady at her word."  
  


"Here I thought you were all ears when it came to comely demon women," said Sebille innocently.  
  


"Ha. I am prepared to accept a great deal from a succubus, but not advice."  
  


"She's not a succubus, is she?" I wondered. Not all female demons are succubi. I think. I'll look it up sometime.  
  


"Listen, it's that or Mordus, and Mordus might be dead or on the run," Ifan reminded us. "So we're going to talk to the Meistr. And Sebille and I both have a dog in this race, that's Roost, so we aren't going to drag our feet. I don't know what else you want us to do."  
  


Sebille smiled. "'Dog in this race'."  
  


"Yeah, I thought you'd like that," Ifan grumped. "So. Any objections?"  
  


"Not for the moment, no," said the Prince. "But do tell me we aren't going to wander into the old witch's shack as a blithe little foursome. Someone will need to scout ahead."  
  


Ifan considered that. "Not a bad idea."  
  


"I don't mind," I heard myself say. "Going in first."  
  


". . .Don't mean it in a bastard way, Saf, but what do you know about preparing for an ambush?"  
  


"How do you prepare for an ambush?" I asked. "You just die. Isn't that the whole point of an ambush?"  
  


"Eh," said Ifan, shrugging one shoulder. "Best case, you push through and get out. Second-best, you keep a flame scroll on you or something so if you die, the other sod goes up too."  
  


"If I were Dallis, or one of her cronies, and I caught _her,_ " said the Red Prince, without even bothering to look in my direction, "not in a thousand years would I believe that she was travelling alone. My _first_ inquest would be as to the location of the others. And I do trust the likes of the Hammer to be ungentle in her interview."  
  


I spluttered. "What makes—why wouldn't I be by myself?"  
  


"Are you volunteering?" Ifan asked, glancing at the Prince. I guess he's running into the same thing I did: refusing flat-out to go 'my prince', or 'milord' or whatever, but then having to rely on your hands and your eyes in order to get his attention. Sebille, with her poisonous ' _sire_ 's, had an easier time.  
  


"By no means. Given the choice, as a matter of fact, I would send the Lone Wolf. . .and keep the others well out of arm's reach."  
  


"Surely we've all been spotted together by now," sighed Sebille. "And _I'm_ going in first, so we can all put this conversation to bed. By all the sweet godblood," she added under her breath.  
  


It didn't matter in the end; the Meistr wasn't home. And neither was anyone else, except for a little girl who told us they'd strung our woman up a short way west, just outside of town.   
  


Not by her neck, I prayed as we tramped through the rain.  
  


We found her dangling from a twine-rope—hands, not neck—on the most ramshackle little gallows I'd ever seen. I wasn't sure if the Divine Order had thrown it together for the occasion, or if it had just recently come, mildewy and creaking, out of a long retirement.  
  


The Meistr was an old lizard—maybe not _old_ , maybe Ifan's age, with that air of having seen what the world could throw at her and having survived it all.   
  


Her head was hanging, her whole body was slack with exhaustion, but when we came near, she lifted her gaze like a hunting dog smelling blood and slowly turned her large golden eyes on us. Her two Magister guards hadn't caught our scent yet, and she looked between them and us. We didn't need to be told twice.  
  


Sebille went ahead, creeping around the back of the gallows, moving and drawing her blades without any sound at all. Then she nodded to Ifan, who loaded a bolt onto his crossbow. That makes noise. Not much, but it was quiet on the edge of town. So the guards whipped around: Sebille caught one around the neck, but Ifan, misjudging, had hit that same guard in the eye with his bolt and she went down. So that left Sebille with the other guard, and without the element of surprise. As her daggers clanged against the young man's sword, the Red Prince joined the fray.  
  


The guard was good with his sword, as far as I could tell, but he couldn't hold off both of them together. He got run through by the Prince's two-hander. And something funny happened to me as I watched that boy struggle on the shining blade like a hooked fish—you know that "wash" thing I've been saying, right? So I didn't mean to, and I was standing a fair bit away, but I started feeling around for his injuries with water magic, against my own will, really. And I felt. . .there's a kind of fear, like an absolute frozen hopelessness that goes through you when you do a wash on a person with a mortal injury. It makes you want to howl on pure instinct, feels like.  
  


Anyway Sebille finished him off while he thrashed and Ifan strode over and tried to wrench his bolt out of the Magister woman's skull. I was glad I hadn't felt _that.  
  
_

"Oh yes," gurgled the Meistr, blood gathering in the wide corners of her mouth as she spoke, " _please_ recover each individual bit of fodder before you release me. I wait gladly."  
  


"We shall release you once you have answered our questions in a satisfactory manner," said the Red Prince, sheathing his sword.  
  


I looked at him with disbelieving eyes.   
  


"Ah. The exiled Prince of the House of War is either far more _stupid,_ " spat the Meistr, "or far more _cruel_ than I've heard."  
  


"Do spare me your little _ad hominem_ s. I promise they will not expedite your relief."  
  


My wrists, oddly, had started to ache while they were talking, and my shoulders burned and I didn't know why and my face was still hot with tears and then I was angry.   
  


"Ask your questions, then," croaked the Meistr, looking murderous.  
  


The Red Prince smirked and took his time about beginning. "The obvious—"  
  


"You're a massive cunt," I interrupted.  
  


Ifan had gotten to his feet, and I went up to him, and he put his beltknife in my hand and my shoulders were _screaming_ and I sawed through that bloody rope like I was cutting my _self_ down from a gallows.  
  


She landed deftly on her feet, the Meistr, even as tired as she must have been, and held her bound hands out to me, and I cut the rope again so that it fell away entirely.  
  


"Much obliged," she told me.  
  


"You hurt so much," I said, desperately, though I don't know what I was expecting her to do.  
  


The Meistr bored me through with her gaze, saying nothing.  
  


"Think it's the rain," I explained, and burst into tears.  
  


We made a sad little procession on the way back to the Meistr's house. We explained to her—well, she didn't let us explain much, actually, she seemed to have figured most of it out already. She took us into a hidden room and had us commune with our gods again, and now I can see spirits.  
  


It's been a day.  
  


(OK, it was more complicated than that. Amadia thought it would be a good idea to fuse her soul with mine—I'm trying not to think too hard about it—and once I've become a Source master or whatever it is she wants from me, she'll show me to the Well of Ascension. . .and she wants me to take all of the gods' Source. _Take_ it. That won't make me Divine. I'm afraid to think of what that will make me. A god, several times over. And I think the others got the same speech from their gods. But none of us said a word to anyone else.)  
  


Having helped us on our way, she told us to get out. (I offered to heal her, but she waved me off.) I eyed the glittering Source fountain sunk into one of the stone walls, and asked if I could take some Source with me. Stopper it in a bottle or something.  
  


"As much as you need," the Meistr said. "'Need', not 'want'. I shouldn't have to tell you that, but you seem to have got a veritable Source King in tow." She gave the Red Prince the most potent killing glare I'd ever seen, and he just weathered it, staring back with stony disinterest.  
  


Brahmos was our next stop.  
  


Ifan and I walked side-by-side for most of our trek east, partly because I was avoiding the Red Prince. I told him what I'd felt, the boy who'd been run through and then, more frightening, how I'd taken on the Meistr's pain. And that nonsense I'd spewed about rain.  
  


"—and we weren't even anywhere near the river, were we? So what was I doing, and what water was I doing it with?"  
  


"Well, what if it's just as simple as you said?" Ifan thumbed one of his many earrings. "It did rain this morning. Water all round."  
  


I frowned. "But am I going to be like this every time it rains?"  
  


"Let's hope not." He was quiet for a bit. "Funny what happened to her. Drained of Source, but not enough by a hair to make her a Monk."  
  


"Yeah."  
  


"Which means they have a cure. And they're making Monks of people anyway."  
  


". . .yeah."  
  


When we reached the paladin camp, they let us know (can you fucking guess?) that Brahmos had gone south, to the big graveyard. At that point we decided to split up: Ifan and Sebille went north to deal with Roost, and I went south with the Red Prince.  
  


Neither of us spoke for a while.  
  


"I'm not sorry," I dared eventually. "It would have been like torturing her."  
  


"Not 'like'," the Prince corrected me, "but the genuine article. I thought the Magisters had already done half of our job for us, and it would be foolish not to seize on the opportunity. But do you know what?"  
  


"What."  
  


"I misjudged. She is not a woman whose tongue is freed by the threat of pain. If there _was_ something she wished to keep back, we could have left her hanging there for a hundred years and never learnt it."  
  


". . .Then if you thought we could get something out of her, you'd have been fine with—"  
  


He didn't take his eyes off the horizon. "What is it they say about the ends and the means?"  
  


"Sometimes you do make me think of Braccus Rex."  
  


"An omen of things to come," he said, with a smile in his voice that chilled me, even if he was just saying it to be a prick.  
  


Slowly the weather got fouler. When after an hour or two, the graveyard came into view, it was like we were pushing into a thicket of rain-clouds. I felt my mind tense, the part of me with magic inside, as if there was a muscle there that had suddenly tightened.  
  


"You _are_ hurt," I told the Prince, half-'seeing' and half-feeling it as the rain set my senses on fire. Something torn or wrenched.   
  


He clicked his tongue, an irritable little sound. "Well? What do you want from me?"  
  


"I want you to sit down."  
  


"I will not. Don't you normally require some source of—" He followed my gaze—I was looking at the sky—and caught a fat raindrop in his eye.  
  


I made myself smile. "Water all round."  
  


We kept moving. The rain got heavier; we were cold and wet and I was tense as a lute-snare. I felt like if I stepped on a beetle, the sensation would have killed me.  
  


When we reached the graveyard, the gates were shut, but not locked. In front of the age-blackened iron was a shifty little man—a necromancer, I think, we found him locked up in the Lady Vengeance when the Seekers first seized her. We'd only ever spoken once, when I had my little infirmary on the top deck of the ship, but I didn't know he'd survived the Hall of Echoes. He wanted some artifact or other. The Prince, who had other things on his mind, gave him a firm "we'll see".  
  


Speaking of necromancy, I think something is very wrong in that graveyard. There's a great big estate in the middle, apparently where the lord of all this land lives, but the place is so desolate. The soil is grey—literally grey, and as weak as sand or ash, and with the constant rain it was like a swamp, a huge soft maw that swallowed my cheap hide sandals with every step.  
  


And the spirits are everywhere. I mean, fancy that—graveyard—spirits—but something is wrong with these. I tried speaking to a couple, and one of them struck up a conversation about gambling, but the others just stared at me, open-mouthed, radiating pain.  
  


"Do you think there's something we can do?" I asked the Red Prince. "What's wrong with them?"  
  


"I am as new to this as you are," he said, absently. If he was troubled, he certainly wasn't troubled enough to pause his search for Brahmos, even for a second.  
  


"Maybe I'll stay here," I said, "and see if I can get them to speak to me."  
  


"Don't be absurd. A stone will return your affection with more diligence than these creatures."  
  


As if responding to him, a woman's voice rang out across the dead garden. " _But a stone's throw from the old hold,_ " she sang, " _there my lover's heart to hold. . .there my lover's heart to keep. . ._ " And her hoarse, unsteady singing got nearer, and a smallish lizard woman appeared from behind a mausoleum. " _There to bide and there to sleep._ "  
  


"Hello," I said, tentatively.  
  


She bobbed her head.  
  


"You. Are you the keeper of these grounds?" demanded the Red Prince.  
  


"Ryker," she said, and she spoke the way she sang, like a feeble bird. "Ryker. . .is the master here. Farimah only tends."  
  


"There are a lot of spirits here," I blurted, before I could think better of it. "Some—don't seem—they don't—"  
  


Farimah turned and beckoned someone I hadn't seen before, a tall, drab person, robed and masked. My heart dropped when they came toward us; they staggered, mindless, like a Monk. "Kept," Farimah explained, "or. . .tended. . ."  
  


I would have been sick if I had anything in me other than plain bread.  
  


Farimah asked us to kill her lord. I felt like I was being pulled apart from every direction by the hurt of the trapped spirits; she was right, I think. But we didn't have a hope of facing a necromancer by ourselves (and I was terrified what would happen to _my_ spirit if we lost), so we resolved to come back with the others. The Red Prince interrogated her about Brahmos, and—Farimah doesn't see the spirits, but she has an ear for them. She pointed us vaguely northeast.  
  


So we found him at last, the Dreamer. It wasn't Brahmos—Brahmos was in the realm of dreams, body and all. This one, the other Dreamer, promised to take the Red Prince to see him.  
  


I stood guard while they dreamed. Later I sat guard. I felt uneasy to the point of panic, but I sat cross-legged in the grey earth with Alexandar's staff in my lap, just until the Red Prince woke again, and the spirit dissipated.  
  


When he got to his feet, it was with a rare, unguarded expression of wonderment. For a few seconds, everything he looked at was amazing, because of the way in which he looked at it. He looked at me with those same restless, astounded eyes, and I'm sure it wasn't really meant for me, but I felt my face flush just under the weight of it.  
  


"Happy dreams?" I asked.  
  


He didn't speak, just held my gaze for a few seconds. I kept myself from looking away. "Monumental," he said, and I marvelled at the giddiness in his voice, "and sublime, and. . .and. . .beyond all reckoning."  
  


"Really," I grinned. Whatever had come over him was infectious. "What happened?"  
  


"As it happens. . .as it happens. . .the race of lizards is descended from dragons." He paused, for the sake of suspense. "We thronged among the clouds, and beclouded the very skies in our myriad numbers. Formidable were we—grand and winged. . .and red."  
  


"Hey. Red." I made a show of frowning and thumbing my chin, even as the rain stuck in my eyelashes and plastered my hair to my neck. "That reminds me of someone. Can't think who. . ."  
  


"Yes, you're terribly witty and adroit." He sat down beside me, discontent with standing still, but too poised to fidget. "Would you like to know _why_ the goddess has apportioned to me the very blood-red of my forefathers?"  
  


"More than anything." I was half being dry and half swept up in his excitement.  
  


"There is to be a new race of dragons," he said quietly, as if revealing an earth-shattering secret. I suppose he was. "And I its harbinger. Its father, even."  
  


The words hung in the air between us. I tried to lay them out straight in my head. "But. . .unless. . .unless Zorl-Stissa expects you to self-fertilise, I—"  
  


He actually laughed. Fine, it was brief, but it wasn't one of those horrendous spiteful 'ha's that make me want to stick pins in my ears. It was nice, a rich sound—him using his voice to its fullest, instead of just drawling in the back of his throat. "I assure you, the Lady has made a very different provision. I. . ." And then, suddenly, he got something almost shy about him. "There exists a moon to my Sun. A. . .peace on the horizon of my War. —oh, how insufferably trite. You understand."  
  


"Sorry, could we sit under a roof somewhere?" I asked. We huddled beneath the lip of a mausoleum with a stained, crumbling entablature. I was sure the whole thing was going to come down on our heads, but better that than another second in the rain. Having settled, I smiled at him. "So is there a Red Princess?"  
  


He looked at me, earnestly, saying nothing.  
  


"No," I said, smiling wider.   
  


"Yes. She is the most beautiful creature on the face of Rivellon. She has come to me in my dreams since I first dreamed."  
  


"And she's going to be the—the dragon-mother."  
  


"Not to mention the great love of my life. The object of my soul's most desperate longing."  
  


I bit my lip, thinking of the bard in the tavern. What he wouldn't have paid to hear all of this from the Red Prince's mouth.   
  


Outside of our mausoleum, dark figures and bright, dizzy spirits milled about. The rain beat on the backs of the stumbling gravekeepers, but they took no notice.  
  


"So where is she?" I asked.  
  


"I don't know." It seemed to take him some effort to admit it. "North, at any rate. I know she is near. I'll dream of her tonight." He stood. "We'll return to that contemptible inn for the night."  
  


So we did. The rain, miraculously, cleared up the instant we were out of view of the graveyard, as if it had been trapped in that one spot. But I was still cold and miserable. I think we were about halfway to Driftwood when I started sniffling.  
  


"Will you _stop_ that," sighed the Red Prince, as if I was doing it just to get on his nerves.  
  


"I know _you_ wick away water, but I don't. So—" I shrieked. He'd taken my arm, where Sebille had stuck me with her needle days ago, and where I still had his puffy brown burn scar. I'd wrenched my arm away before I even knew what was happening.  
  


"Excuse me," he half-mumbled. "May I?"  
  


"I—sure," I said, too dumbfounded to say much else. He put his hands, more gently, on my upper arms. We stopped. Very slowly, spreading out from the centre of my chest—my heart, maybe, maybe my blood itself was heating—I felt a pleasant warmth. It floated out toward my arms and legs. The tips of my fingers.   
  


"That's nice," I said.  
  


"Any of my kin," he explained, slowly, "who expect to travel outside the reaches of the Empire. . .are well served to learn a piece of subtle pyrokinesis. For use in colder climes, naturally."  
  


"You weren't expecting to have to leave, were you?"  
  


"Oh, when one has fielded as many assassination attempts as I have done, one keeps an ear tuned to the melody of fate."  
  


"Well, thank you," I said. Since he had my arms, I tried (and failed) to blow a stringy clump of hair from my face.  
  


He caught the outlaw strands of hair on the sickle-hollow of his claw and smoothed them away for me. Then, apparently struck with an idea: "I wonder. . ." And he ran his hand—not through my hair, there was no ploughing through the tangled black mess of it now—but over it, stroking, and slowly the unpleasant feeling of something cold and wet in my neck faded.   
  


"Hey," I said, touching my hair with my free hand. Dry. "I didn't know that was possible."  
  


"Not to the uncouth hand, I should think. But my hand is. . .more couth than most." As an afterthought, he gathered my hair to the side and swept it over my shoulder. I didn't really see the point.  
  


"Since we're standing still anyway, will you let me look at that arrow wound now?"  
  


"That can wait until after our return to Driftwood."  
  


"But my little cold was an emergency," I teased.  
  


"It was irritating. Emergency enough."  
  


"Fine."   
  


My robes were damp still, but I wasn't shivering. When we got to Driftwood, I bought a second set—we'd split our money four ways—as well as a little comb of dark, sanded wood, and a square of scrap linen and a sewing needle in case I needed to make any repairs. (And a bra! Praise Amadia!) I stuffed everything into one of the leather packs we'd lifted from dead Magisters and we made for the tavern.  
  


It was bread again. The Red Prince wanted to go and exchange a few friendly words with the cook, but I asked him not to. (I didn't trust him not to set her off, and the last thing we needed was to be caught in the middle of a bar brawl.) We did get sauce, though. 'Sauce'. Someone in the market had sold me a few fat tomatoes that were well past their prime, and the man at the tavern lent us a bowl to crush them into. It wasn't great, but better.  
  


And we got ale. Maybe more than was responsible. It was there, and it was cheap. We were downstairs for most of the evening, but I think after three or five drinks I got tired of the bar and also the bar lady's dirty looks. No—I left after she started quoting Lucian at me. I suppose the server had seen a lot of customers get frightened away—he offered to run another few rounds up to our room as long as I paid ahead. That was fine. I left the Red Prince in a muddled conversation with an elven woman, who was in ten times as deep as anyone else at the bar.  
  


I'd changed into my new robes, but I put the old ones back on, even though they were still halfway damp, because I didn't want ale-stink in my new set.  
  


It wasn't long before the Red Prince came up, too. "Sit down," I told him the instant he'd come through the door.  
  


He was halfway slurring, but not quite. "It seems that every time you ssspeak," he murmured, sitting down, "I add to. . .my tally of executions you would have suffered in my household. For your sheer insolence."  
  


"What's the tally?" I grinned.   
  


"Thirty-two. Haven't counted so very long, it's—it's—conservative estimate."   
  


The server, lunatic that he was, had brought up a crate of twenty bottles. Maybe he thought there were still four of us. Sixteen bottles were left. I pointed. "Fancy an ale?"  
  


He seemed to take a very long time deciding which bottle to pick. Finally he closed his hand around one.  
  


"Well. Thank you for not executing me. Can I return the favour by taking a look at your arrow?" That's what I remember saying, but it must have been much stupider in reality. I was that sort of tipsy where you _feel_ knife-sharp, and omnipotent, but you're really neither.  
  


"If you must." Without being prompted, he pulled his shirt over his head and threw it aside.  
  


I shuffled over, setting my half-empty bottle back in the crate where it couldn't tip over. When I touched him, I nearly pulled back. "Rhalic's hairy arse! You aren't always like this? Burning?"  
  


"The pyrokinetic in me," he said. "I could be far, far hotter. I could scorch your fingertips at a touch."  
  


"Well, don't."  
  


"Thirty-three."  
  


"What?" I frowned. "For asking you not to burn my fingers off?"  
  


"For presuming to give me an order."  
  


"You don't have to follow it. You can burn my fingers off if you _want,_ I'm only trying to say that it would be an arsehole thing to do."  
  


"Thirty-f— _ah!_ "  
  


"Sorry," I said, _delighted_ that I'd made him yelp, _delighted_ to have felt him jump when I put my hands on him. "I must have cold hands."   
  


The Red Prince said nothing.  
  


I had been figuring out how to control my own body temperature with Hydrosophy, so my hands, when I touched him, had been like ice. But I stopped now, and started healing in earnest. It took me a while to register the soft vibration I was feeling under my hands, and a while longer to hear him humming.  
  


"I'm only teasing," I said, tentatively, finding the injury that had been bothering me all day; a shallow scrape somewhere, and some inward bleeding, not enough to really harm, at least not immediately.  
  


"I'm well aware," he said eventually, the picture of calm.  
  


"Well, but you were humming."  
  


"And that caused you some great offence?"  
  


"No," I said after a moment. "But. . .I've only ever heard you hum the way other people count to ten. Instead of decking someone."  
  


"You—"  
  


"Or if you're thinking."  
  


"You are in no danger of being 'decked'." He paused, and his tone became half-sarcastic and half-confessional: "When I truly see red, I recite verse."  
  


"Oh," I said.  
  


"Progress seems slow," he remarked, looking down to watch me work. "You know, to touch a prince of the Empire is to enjoy seven years' good luck."  
  


"Well, there you go," I smiled. "Just, er, getting my lifetime's worth."  
  


"I can say with certainty that it doesn't work that way."  
  


I ignored him. Joking aside, internal damage is a very finicky thing to heal, and I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything else this time. "Tell me about the Red Princess?" I said—and it was a few seconds before I even realised what had come out of my mouth.  
  


"I sincerely beg your pardon?"  
  


"Sorry. Slipped out," I said honestly. Between the ale and my focus being on healing, my shutting-up instinct was dulled. "But I am curious."  
  


He shifted. ". . .What is there to tell? Aside from the obvious, which you know."  
  


"Mother of dragons."  
  


"As it were."  
  


"But who is she?" I asked. "Does she. . .she does exist? Is she a princess of one of the other Houses?"  
  


"What a question. 'Does she exist'."  
  


"So you've met her."  
  


"In dreams. In each and every dream."  
  


"And do you talk to her? Does she talk back? What's her name?"  
  


I felt him begin to hum, but he stopped himself and, in a strangely shaky voice—like a little boy's, quivering with conviction—he said: "Her—name—is Sadha, and she smells of jasmine. And now enough."  
  


"All right." I chewed my lip. "And you telling that bard you didn't believe in love. . ."  
  


" _Useless_ love. If the issue of this particular love is the fulfillment of an old prophecy, and the rebirth of a sacred race from the ages of glory. . .I can hardly consider that 'useless'."  
  


"Fair enough." I straightened, taking my hands back almost reluctantly. "You're very pleasant. Like a stove heater."  
  


He looked me in the eye. "And I require not a single piece of coal."  
  


A baffled laugh came out of me—was it the drink that had put him in such a good mood? "I didn't miss anything this time, did I?"  
  


"Not so far as my instinct tells me."  
  


"Good," I said. "Good." Sitting up against the nearby wall, I hugged my knees close. "Can I ask you a question?"  
  


"A second question to succeed this one, you mean."  
  


"How _exactly_ do you see your future? Once all of this is over?" I dug my nails into my upper arms. "Divine—with Sadha as your empress—and a litter of dragons?"  
  


He considered me for what felt like a very long time. "Something of that order."  
  


"Zorl-Stissa. . .wants you to become Divine."  
  


"I daresay we've been over this point."  
  


"But _not_ Divine the way Lucian was. She wants you to take the Source of all the other gods. I suppose they'd still _name_ you a Divine, but. . .but you'd be a god, or more."  
  


"An enticing prospect, isn't it?"  
  


" _No,_ " I said, much more violently than I'd wanted to. "It sounds horrendous. Giving the power of all the gods to one person—people are—make—make bad decisions."  
  


The Red Prince cast a glance about for his shirt. He didn't see it within reach—it had skidded under one of the beds—and promptly decided it wasn't important. "Answer me this," he said eventually. "Your goddess. . .in your meetings with her—has she lived up to your expectations?"  
  


"Not really," I said. "It's like talking to any old person, only more—you know—cocksure. But still a person with flaws."  
  


"Then you're beginning to see the unfortunate truth, just as I am. It strikes me as an unlikelihood that 'any old person' would do much worse than the current gods, unless they were _remarkably_ inept."  
  


I shrugged.  
  


"And for the purpose of becoming a god, none could fare better than a Godwoken, one chosen by the gods."  
  


"I'm going to get some sleep," I said, suddenly feeling very heavy. I got to my feet with some difficulty, and realised happily that I could take one of the beds this time. Then my mind went to Ifan and Sebille, probably camped under the open sky, or in an abandoned building, with any luck. Or dead already. I said nothing as I settled beneath the covers. Gods. My first real bed in months. There's no king or queen in Rivellon more comfortable than I am in this scratchy tavern cot.  
  


I say this every time, but I hope you're OK. I wish you were here and you'd escaped, or that you were in Arx, and none of this ever happened. Every time I think of Divinity I want to scream. I wish you hadn't turned yourself in. I wish I hadn't ever gone to Esthallow. I wish a bloody lot of things. It's getting to be like a nightly prayer.  
  


All my love.  
Saf


	11. Day 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW!

Waking up was today's biggest mistake. I found myself sweaty and choked by blankets in the arse-crack of dawn—six or half six—I'd woken up from a nightmare. I don't remember much of it now, but I was stuck in that graveyard, Ryker's graveyard, with all the other wandering spirits and the stumbling groundskeepers. I don't remember which I was.  
  


I didn't want to go back to sleep—well, I did, but I didn't—so I dug up the comb I'd bought and started to pick more than a month's endless knots out of my hair. It was long, desperate work, and more than once I thought of cutting it all off, but I kept combing. I'd been trembling like some prey animal when I woke up, and the constant mindless motion of untangling matted hair was soothing.  
  


It would have been eight or nine when the Red Prince finally woke. (I say "finally", but I'd have slept much later if I had my way.) I was just braiding my hair to keep it from tangling again, but I couldn't get a decent angle in order to tie off the end with a scrap of linen. "Good morning," I said, once he'd sat up. "Since you're awake, could you give me a hand?"  
  


The Prince sighed. "Scarcely have I unclosed my eyes but she has an appeal prepared."  
  


"It'll be quick," I said, standing. With one hand on my braid, I held out the bit of cloth to him. "Can you tie off my braid?"  
  


For a moment, he just watched me. Then he took the cloth scrap out of my hand and said, "sit down."  
  


"I got a bit fed up walking around like some sort of. . .half-woven basket," I explained.  
  


"I don't know that I've ever seen a basket half-woven."  
  


"When it's still got all the reed bits sticking out." I shook my head. "Doesn't matter. Are you finished?"  
  


And he pulled apart the braid I'd made—and re-braided it himself, before I thought to argue. "There," he declared, and knotted the bit of cloth tightly around the end.  
  


". . .thank you," I said, feeling it with my fingers. It was tighter than I'd done—though not tight enough to make my sore scalp any sorer—and probably more orderly, but I didn't have a mirror. I wondered who had taught him to braid. Was it the human woman, the tall white courtesan with the golden hair?  
  


"I have seen my Princess," he said. "She is near. We have only to find her."  
  


"In y—in your dream, you mean?" I shifted until I was facing him. I was wearing the bra and trousers I'd gone to sleep in, and I felt suddenly bare.  
  


"Naturally. She. . .was in a great pale plain. . .with a slew of travelling-carts from the Empire. Far to the North, as Brahmos had said."  
  


"So we're going the same way as Ifan and Sebille."  
  


"As it seems."  
  


"I wish we hadn't split up," I said, pushing my tongue into my cheek. "D'you think we'll get many Voidwoken, now that. . ."  
  


"I expect we shall," he said simply.  
  


We didn't actually have the money to buy everything I'd have liked to get for the trip north, but we did get more cloth, and a length of rope, and an arseload of flour. Rhalic's scabby elbows, what I wouldn't give for a vegetable. (But I suppose we can't have half-rotted tomatoes knocking about in our bags.)  
  


We set out at noon—I think we made it about five miles north without incident. There was the odd corpse, usually still carrying its gold, because nobody was risking their arse in this part of Reaper's Coast with the Voidwoken about, especially not for a deflated coinpurse or two. I thought about buying another spellbook once we got back to Driftwood. If we got back to Driftwood.  
  


Then we ran into a clutch of Voidwoken larvae, hell-black, shining. Freshly spawned, maybe. I hate fighting them, they have so many grasping little legs and they'll spit all manner of vile Void-stuff your way. I got some on the back of my hand and the skin bubbled and fell away. But: as soon as I grabbed my staff and started conjuring ice, they were as revolted by me as I was by them. They die eventually, you've just got to hit them hard.  
  


I pressed a wet bit of cloth to my raw hand and healed as we walked. We put another mile between ourselves and the Voidwoken corpses and sat down to eat, and something struggled toward the Red Prince. It had, at some point, been a rabbit. It had got some of the Void in it, and now it dragged itself forward, whimpering with each movement in a voice like nails on a glass window.  
  


I lost control of my hands when I made out what it was—I dropped my pack onto the flat stone we'd been using for a cook-plate. Something glass shattered and suddenly all I could see was white, a torrent of shimmering steam everywhere. I breathed it in. I should have choked on it, but I felt like I was breathing the freshest mountain air or drinking from the purest spring or some of that lark. Something prickled the back of my hand; it was healing without my intervention.  
  


"What in the Lady's name did you do?" demanded the Red Prince, waving away the steam, which was already thinning.  
  


I held up my pack. Source, impossibly blue, was seeping thickly onto the ground. "Oh," I said. "It's Source. It's healing."  
  


The rabbit with its horrible unearthly nagging had crawled into the Prince's lap and made a nest of his hard hands. He held onto it more gently than I'd ever seen him do anything, cleared his throat and held the unhappy little thing nearer the Source-steam, nearer and nearer until it was swallowed by the white clouds. It stopped its warbling, but when the Prince held it close to himself again, nothing about it had changed. He caught my eye with a half-smile that struck me as embarrassed. "I'll concede it was an unlikely gamble at best."  
  


I inched nearer and petted the rabbit with two fingers. It trembled, but it didn't protest, and it didn't make any more sound. I could feel the Void inside it, like something with endless limbs that was evicting the rabbit from its own body. "I think it's not hurting as much now," I said. "But it won't get better. What do we do with it?"  
  


"We kill it, obviously. We do it a kindness."  
  


"What—" I emptied out my pack and sorted out the shards of the Source bottle. "—what's—quick?"  
  


The Red Prince moved so that he was holding the quivering rabbit with one hand, and with the other unsheathed the greatsword lying beside him.  
  


I felt suddenly very sick. "Will you," I began, and my voice was barely there, "will you please go away with it?"  
  


He looked me in the eye and stood, clutching the rabbit to his chest and hefting the sword over his shoulder. A few minutes later he was back, without the rabbit, and I'd sorted the mess in my pack. "That might be useful," I said, conversationally, "that Source-steam, might be. Only too bad that was the last of it."  
  


"You have an internal store still, if I'm not mistaken."  
  


I nodded. "I'll have to do a bit of figuring with that. When I get the chance. D'you think it's—odd—am I wrong? D'you feel more pity for a rabbit than for hundreds of thousands of people?"  
  


"Has the hour sounded for another diatribe?" He stood. "By all means, then, but do it as we walk. We've lost quite enough time to sentiment."  
  


"I'm not—it's not a diatribe. I just think it's interesting. Because what's a rabbit?"  
  


"A rabbit is a thing over which to snivel. A rabbit is a thing whose execution you—an executioner of men, Safiya—cannot, apparently, bear to witness."  
  


My face got very hot. "When that bard asked you about slavery, you dodged the question."  
  


"I didn't dodge any question. I pointed out. . ." He dropped his voice. I couldn't hear him over the sound of the wind and the grass underfoot, but I knew he was humming.  
  


"Stop it," I cut in. "It's only me. Just say what you're going to say."  
  


"I pointed out the _same thing,_ " he snapped, "which I have tried in vain to make clear to _you:_ that I simply cannot lift a _fucking_ finger to change it."  
  


I felt the wet grass flick beads of water onto my feet as I leveled the ground with my sandals. "You've never said anything like that."  
  


"Well, if the gods ever gave you a _drop_ of sense, I invite you to use it now. One day the sun will rise and I will be the Emperor, but today is certainly not that day. Until that dawn comes—humiliating as it is to make the admission—I have less than nothing to say about the matter, or any other."  
  


"And what happens," I said, tearing a bit of skin from my lower lip, "when you _are_ the Emperor? You're going to just release everyone?"  
  


"I don't know," he said. "I don't know. A hundred thousand different forces act upon me now, and a hundred thousand more shall act upon me when I am in the Emperor's seat. I could hardly wave my hand and—"  
  


"But you do want to."  
  


"It seems barely possible without uprooting the entire Empire."  
  


"It seems barely possible that you're going to bring back an entire race of dragons," I pointed out. "If you believe in one of those things, then. . ."  
  


We were quiet.  
  


"Have you never considered Divinity?" The Red Prince asked after a while. "Not once given the idea a passing thought?"  
  


I shivered. "I—maybe in a nightmare. Why?"  
  


"We'll see, I imagine. Sometimes my eyes deceive me and I see a spark of promise in you."  
  


"Don't," I grinned, and swatted him lightly on the arm. Then it occurred to me that he might not have been joking, and I grit my teeth.  
  


It would have been about five more miles, ten or eleven total, when the sun went down. Neither of us knew the first thing about setting up a camp, but I had this idea that I was going to tie a length of rope between two trees and drape some cloth over it, and fasten it to the ground so that we at least had something like a roof.   
  


The first attempt didn't go my way. The trees were too far apart, and one of them was surrounded by a clump of bramble bushes with long, dry thorns that lashed open my right knee. We found a second pair of trees that worked much better, and once we'd gotten rid of all the rocks, and I'd spread the rest of the linen on the ground for a carpet, it was even sort of cozy.  
  


We were on the shore of a lake, close enough that if you were lying in our ramshackle tent, and you stuck out your arm, your fingertips would touch the water. The Red Prince set a fire.   
  


"I'm going to go and wash up a bit," I said. "Come with me?"  
  


"I'll keep watch here," he said, despite the fact that we were a few feet from the water. "Besides, I cannot rival your capacity for foulness."  
  


"You're saying I stink?" I grinned and wriggled out of my robes. I pulled my other set from my pack and rummaged around for my comb and put both near the firepit.  
  


"That is precisely what I'm saying. I'm certain I wasn't being oblique about it."  
  


I was in my bra and trousers now, and the two of us had a choice to make. I could have walked into the water like that, and warmed up later by the fire. And if I did want to undress, it would have been easy for him to find something else to do—somewhere else to look—to poke at the fire, to find kindling.   
  


But I unlaced my bra, fumbling to undo the knots I'd tied before, and set it on the pile with my other things. And I stepped out of my trousers and folded them. And the entire time, the Red Prince's eyes were on me.   
  


"Back in a bit," I said, and waded into the icy water. I didn't go in much farther than waist-deep, I was afraid of finding a sudden pit. Once I was there, I undid the bit of cloth that was holding my braid and shook my hair loose. I went under, held my breath for a few seconds, and came up again. I rubbed the grime from my arms the best I could, washed my face and sloshed around a bit for good measure, but there was only so much I could do without soap or something to scrub with.  
  


I raised a few icicles. I had all this water anyway, and I wanted to be sharp in case we ran into any more Voidwoken. I played with it; how quickly or slowly I could make them fall, how many to raise and in what formation.  
  


"Turn your hand," called the Red Prince behind me.   
  


I waded toward him, buffeted by the cold lakeside wind and with my hair dripping water. I was up to my shins. Blood dribbled from my cut knee. "What was that?" I asked.  
  


Without taking his eyes off mine, he held out his right hand, with the palm facing upward, the same way I do with the icicles. Slowly—slowly—he turned his palm toward himself, and extended his arm, so that he was pushing out the back of his hand.  
  


I turned to the water and copied his motion; the ice spikes, turning along with my hand, became daggers, or arrows, and soared out ahead of me.  
  


"All of that raising and lowering business. . .is novel, but time-consuming. And there is something to be said for the direct approach."  
  


I said nothing. I crushed my foot into the water and thrust forward with the back of my hand. Three razor-sharp ice daggers flew across the lake; one buried itself soundly in the bark of a tree on the other side.  
  


"Bravo," said the Red Prince, in a tone that seemed almost sincere.  
  


"What made you think of that?" I asked, stepping out of the water. I eyed my trousers, but I didn't want to try to get into them while I was still sopping, so I shuffled closer to the fire and waited to dry.  
  


"I was attempting to gauge to what extent the practice of Hydrosophy overlaps with that of pyrokinesis. More than I expected."  
  


"Hm."  
  


He took one of the stones from the firepit and rolled it around in his hand. "I have a wonder—perhaps overdue in the asking."  
  


"Oh?"  
  


"How, Safiya, did you find yourself in Fort Joy? And you'll spare me the glib answer about a boat."  
  


"Oh."  
  


I gave him the long version; the apprenticeship under Oak, the academy in Esthallow, what happened to my mother, you turning yourself in, the Magisters coming round our place with Source hounds.  
  


"The fucking thing is that I can't _stand_ painting," I said, pulling on my robes, which were exactly as warm and lovely as I'd hoped. "I spent half my life doing nothing else. It wasn't worth the trouble my mum went to."  
  


"Then I imagine," said the Red Prince wryly, "that I couldn't tempt you to take my portrait."  
  


"Not unless you paid me _very_ well." I wrung the last of the water out of my hair. "But if you're ever in Arx, the man I apprenticed under—Hubert Oak—he's still got a few old studies of mine up, I think. I was twelve, so they won't be any good, but."  
  


"Hubert Oak. Hubert Oak. . ."  
  


"He painted the triptych of Lucian's ascension. He's sort of a legend among artists. Or he was," I added, remembering.  
  


"He bled himself dry trying to paint the successor," said the Red Prince, having placed the name. "That is what I heard, at any rate. A death as poetic as it was pointless."  
  


"You should see what blood and Source can do on a canvas," I said. "But he went off his head trying to outdo the Ascension, I think. He was a good teacher. He was terrible to his son, though. Nothing was ever good enough. Would you?" I asked, holding out the bit of cloth for my braid and scooting close.  
  


"Discipline and high expectations," he said, starting on my hair. "The only way to raise a child with ambition."  
  


"Well, this child thinks his father didn't love him. I think that's an awful thing to do to your son."  
  


"Love is another equation altogether."  
  


"Were your parents very loving?" I asked.  
  


"They did everything that was expected of them. Beyond that, I could ask nothing more." He paused. "My mother was as much a bodyguard as she was a caretaker. Shielding a child from any assassination attempts is no conventional postnatal duty, so I hear."  
  


I thought that was a sad answer. "My mother loved me," I told him, "and she made sure I knew it. I know what love looks like because of her. If I'd grown up alone with my dad, I would have thought all the. . .you know—that the bastard things he did were love. I think that would have wrecked my life, not—made me ambitious."  
  


He finished my braid and let it fall lightly, so I knew it was done. I turned to face him. "D'you want to get some sleep? We have to make another ten miles tomorrow, maybe more."  
  


"That would be the wise thing, wouldn't it?"  
  


We settled in. The 'tent', such as it was, was really barely big enough for one person to lie in. We lay on our sides—he put an arm over me. I was tremendously comfortable, sandwiched between the old, grassfooted tree and the immense warmth of the Red Prince.  
  


"You have a name, don't you?" I asked. "'The Red Prince' is only a title."  
  


". . .if my traffic with demons has taught me anything," he murmured into my ear, "it is this: a name should not be lightly given out. Least of all that of one such as I."  
  


"You gave me Sadha's," I said, and my insides all winced—maybe neither of us wanted to talk about Sadha. "And you have mine."  
  


He was silent around me.  
  


"Can I give you one, then?" I asked. I already had something in mind. "Well. Not a name, but more of an, er, appellation."  
  


"What, then?" I could hear his smile.  
  


" _Emr._ It's a Mezdi word. It'll grow on you."  
  


"Dare I ask what the word means?"  
  


"No," I said flatly. "You'll find out at some point, maybe."  
  


So we lay. It was dark and my body was tired from the walk, but the more time passed, the more restless I got. His arm, wherever it brushed against me, felt burning hot, although I'm sure it was only in my head.   
  


I moved my arm and half-accidentally jostled his fingers with mine. I thought I heard him chuckle into my ear; he dragged the claw of his index finger across the back of my hand, infuriatingly softly, then up the length of my arm. He drew circles around my shoulder and my heart raced. Then—so slowly it felt like hours—he brought his hand to rest on my ribs, and ran his thumb back and forth across my nipple, very lightly, almost absentmindedly.  
  


I couldn't take it, and I didn't have room to dramatically whirl around, so I grabbed hold of his wrist. "What," I said, sounding as breathless as I felt, "what—what are you after?"  
  


"I could put the same question to you," he whispered—his mouth was near my ear, so all he had to do was whisper.   
  


"Let me sit up," I said. He moved back and sat upright, and so did I. I could only see him by the firelight; he glowed. And I sighed, went up on my knees and kissed him. It was like a bushfire, blindingly fast. I couldn't hold myself up—I slumped into his shoulder and pressed kisses down the length of his neck, until his shirt was in my way. "Take that off."  
  


"Not yet," he said, and I was almost angry how perfectly calm and composed he still sounded. "Why don't you take yours off, as a matter of fact. I have plans."  
  


"All right." I was curious despite myself. I crawled out from beneath the half-tent and whipped off my robes as fast as I possibly could. I looked back at him and went, deliberately, for my bra.   
  


"You're positively divine in the firelight," he said, lying back and making a show of watching me.  
  


I tore away the scab on my knee when I took off my trousers, and I felt the blood ooze down my leg as I came inside again. "So what's that plan?"  
  


"There is none," he said shortly. "I wanted to look at you."  
  


"Here I am."  
  


He took his time about 'looking'; he ran his hands over every part of me, luxuriating. My collar bone, the small of my back. The brown burn scar he'd put on my arm—he rubbed at it, thoughtfully, but didn't speak.  
  


"You know," he said, tracing around my nipples (I bit hard into my lip), "I think these are charming."  
  


I grinned at him. "I th—I thought so, too." (My piercings—I have them in gold now.)  
  


"I wanted to touch them the moment I saw them."  
  


"They. . ." I closed my eyes. He was pressing harder, drawing small, taut circles. I lost my train of thought, I didn't care about being witty.  
  


"Lie down," he said, bringing his hands down to my waist, sliding along the curve there.   
  


I shook my head. " _You're_ still wearing bloody armour. Go on."  
  


He sighed, pressed his mouth to one of my piercings and got to his feet. I think my heart beat out of my chest when he peeled away his shirt, even though I'd seen him without it often enough. Then went the greaves, glinting in the orange light. Funny, his body itself was armour beneath them, hard and plated.  
  


"Here I am," he said when he sat before me. Sincere.   
  


I didn't say anything. Well, I did. I nattered the way I do in bed, giddy. "You're so—you're—a castle. Where's my way in?" I wasn't asking for an answer. I felt him with my hands, loving every texture, scale and muscle that didn't yield, but moved like water whenever he shifted. And he glowed like steel with the orange fire flaring behind him. I cooled my fingertips—just my fingertips—and skated them all over his body, colder here, harder there. Everywhere I touched, he tensed. I searched the planes of his body with my mouth, found the places that were softest and pressed my lips onto them. His breathing didn't change, but he hummed for me, and sometimes if I surprised him the humming would be cut off with a little gasp. I could have stayed there forever ferreting out those little gasps from their hiding places. I palmed the insides of his thighs, pushing them apart, and ghosted my fingers along the slit between his legs. He trembled. My way in. Quietly, almost lazily, his cock came into view, deep red and self-assured like the rest of him.  
  


"Lie down," he said again, and finally his voice was unsteady, so I lay down. He ran his hand down between my legs, this time with a goal in mind. When he found the nub there, he circled it, slowly at first. He had no eyes for his work; he was watching my face. Watching my chest rise and fall. He thumbed one of my nipples with his free hand, nudging the little gold piercing this way and that. I clenched my fists when I came, and then clenched them harder when he kept going. My legs shook. I looked up at him. He fixed me with a knowing smile.  
  


"How does that feel?" he asked.  
  


I swallowed hard. "It aches. Don't stop."  
  


He worked me through the strange ache. I was a shaking mess, but I felt impatient. I reached for his cock. I wasn't going to be the only one going to pieces. "I don't want to—spend," he said, "not yet."  
  


"W-well, that's up to you, isn't it," I stammered, and I kept pumping with my hand—not as fast as he was doing me, I didn't know what he was planning after this, but enough to make him moan, which was all I wanted.  
  


I came again, so sharp I cried out. I laughed and touched my mouth. I'm normally quiet. The aftershocks made little muscles twitch in my legs. I sat upright and ran my thumb along the length of his cock. "What d'you want me to do with this, then?"  
  


He shot me a smile that turned my insides to jelly. "The question is, what do you want _me_ to do with it?"  
  


"Yeah?" I grinned. "I'll lie down again. Unless you want me on top."  
  


"After I've tired you out? That would be hardly sporting."  
  


"Mm." I lay down, and I felt the heat radiating from him when he settled his body over mine. He was slow about pushing into me. I breathed in—it had been a while—but I'm not exactly new to the sport, and I was excited. Still, always the gentleman, he stopped for me. I put my hands on his back, I felt the muscles in his shoulders straining. "Don't slow down for my sake," I whispered. That was all I needed to say. Now I got to feel his unmatched endurance for myself; he drove into me again and again—once he'd set his pace, he kept it. And I let go of him with one hand and finished myself a third time. I was oversensitive, it almost burned a little, but he kept coming up against that spot that made me warm from my navel to my toes.   
  


He buried his head in my neck when he came, and I heard his low halting breath, and I felt all the tension go out of him. I turned onto my side once he'd pulled out, his come already cooling between my legs, and he lay opposite me, resting his head on my arm.  
  


"Well, that's not fair on you, is it?" I panted. "Now we're three to one."  
  


"Of course we are." He smoothed a few sweaty strands of hair out of my face. "What would be left of my pride otherwise?"  
  


I shook my head. "Thank you."  
  


"And thank _you._ Perhaps now we'll get some sleep."  
  


"Mm," I said, already drowsy. I wanted to kiss the hollow of his shoulder, but the moment had passed. I shut my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it wasn't my intention, but the journal format accidentally makes this really fucking funny. safiya "theres something wrong with me so i'm going to write out this sexual encounter in painful detail in a journal entry directed at my missing girlfriend" bin-zayna


	12. Day 19

You know I don't know what I was thinking. I suppose I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking about what would happen after—I wasn't thinking about the entire day we still had to walk, and regret, and walk some more.  
  


I didn't wake up warm and content. I woke up freezing and feeling the wind on my arse and wondering _why_ I could feel the wind on my arse and then scrambling for my clothes.  
  


"Your things are here," said the Red Prince, already out by the dead firepit.  
  


"Oh. I'm going to pop into the water first." I still had his spend on the insides of my thighs.   
  


"As you will."  
  


I was fast about it, and I was fast about putting on my clothes. My feet were just starting to sprout a few shallow blisters, and I wished for something sturdier than sandals. (I'd talked to a cobbler in Driftwood, but a good pair of leather boots costs an actual fucking fortune, as it turns out.)  
  


It was. . .fine otherwise. We made pretty good time. And—it's not like we marched in hateful silence. We chatted about things that were harmless—or—no topic of conversation is ever harmless with him, but as close as possible. Home. Missing the warm places we'd come from. I told a few stories about Esthallow. And we came across one wandering Magister, but no Voidwoken. We did find a dog (a great big sweetheart of a sheepdog) that was Void-tainted, but I don't want to write about that. We dealt with it.  
  


Luckily, we found a cave around sunset; not much more than an outcropping of rock, but there was our shelter, roomier than last night, and warm enough, with a fire set in the mouth of the cave.  
  


" _Emri,_ " I said, lying on my side, tilting my head upward toward him and the fire.  
  


He was poking idly at the fire—with a bare claw; I suppose he doesn't burn easily. "You ought, at least, to make up your mind about this appellation of yours."  
  


"Pardon?"  
  


"'Emr', or 'emri'?" He couldn't roll an 'r' to save his life. Somewhere that gave me a little glow of satisfaction.  
  


I smiled. "That's your mystery to solve, _emri._ "  
  


"Oh, joy. Speak your mind, then."  
  


"About Sadha," I said, before my good sense could catch up to my idiot mouth.  
  


Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't for him to scoff. "Don't wind yourself up. There would be no suffering you."  
  


Bristling, I sat up. "I'm not the one who should be wound up, am I?"   
  


"Pity on me, that I expected you to act like a grown woman about this. Listen to me. Whatever becomes of Sadha and me after our meeting in the flesh—the fact is that yesterday, as all the yesterdays before, was only part of the prelude to that meeting. I cannot be faulted for acting while I yet have the opportunity, can I?"  
  


Dead tired, suddenly, I lay down again, turning my face away from the fire, but feeling its heat in my neck. "I don't see why you ever have to stop. . .'acting' on people. You're going to be the Divine Emperor. It'd almost be odd if you _didn't_ have a harem, right?"  
  


He laughed—or—a mean-spirited little chuckle. My heart shrank. "And you, the most esteemed piece in my salacious treasury? Safiya in sapphires, silken-scintillating."  
  


"Oh, no," I mumbled, wishing the conversation would end. "Not me. I'll be in Arx. Maybe I'll visit and paint your portrait."  
  


"Fathomless my gratitude to you," he deadpanned. "You would do well to rest for the night. Evidently you're beside yourself with exhaustion."  
  


"Evidently," I said. "Sweet dreams, _emr._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♫♪ fire is the metaphor ♪♫


	13. Day 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is NSFW!

We found Roost—but not before we passed through Paradise Downs. Paradise Downs is a little village, if you looked at Ifan's sketched map, it would be almost at the northern tip. It's a pit now, a hell of Voidwoken and animals cursed by the Void, wracked by storms and fireballs hurtling from the sky (I wish I was joking). We didn't stay long.   
  


I thought the best thing would be to creep north and try not to be seen by anything, but our Source is a beacon now to any and all Voidwoken, so a few of them picked a fight with us. Repulsive things. Insects vomiting poison and fire at us. Just larvae, or half-grown ones anyway, thank the gods. We got out of that one all right.  
  


But once we were on the outskirts of the ruined village, there was a small, shallow river we had to ford, and looming there was an enormous Void-beast, the height of two or three houses, and with wings like worn cloth, and I didn't see any more because we dove into the grass and kept low and PRAYED it wouldn't come near us. And it let out a long, high cry, and I lay there for an eternity thinking I was dead.  
  


We crawled until my arms were sore and my robes were thoroughly filthy, and then we went the rest of the way on foot, a mile or more, and when the grass was green again instead of white and bone-sharp, and the sour rain had stopped, and the crackling of dry things catching fire was out of my ears, I sat down and couldn't get up again.  
  


It's not that I was panicked—I felt quite calm. I wasn't even trembling. I just felt a bit hungry and I couldn't feel my legs. I was walking and then I wasn't, sitting on the soft grass with my legs like two boulders.  
  


"I need to stop," I said, stating the painfully fucking obvious.  
  


"You aren't hurt," said the Red Prince, so flatly I wasn't certain if he was asking a question or giving the answer.  
  


"I'm not hurt. I just can't move. Or—" With an incredible effort, I moved my left foot about an inch. "No, I need to stop."  
  


"I won't play at disappointment," he said, graciously, sitting beside me. "Better we should rest now than later be outpaced by a foe."  
  


"I suppose my legs must agree with you," I smiled. "Weren't you frightened out of your mind?"  
  


"Fear has no real use, except perhaps as a temporary grindstone to the dull wit. To push through the paralysis is an art, and one which many people have taken great pains to cultivate in me." He paused, scanning our surroundings, and then looked me in the eye. "But in all frankness: yes."  
  


I nodded. "Sorry I didn't pick a better spot. There's no good stones about."  
  


"There is nothing for it now," he said, and went off.  
  


I blinked, and then suddenly he was back, with a flat, pale stone. I heard speaking—someone speaking—but it was like I was underwater.  
  


It wasn't until the bread was sizzling, and the hot oil was spitting tiny, scalding spatters onto my feet, that I started to feel a bit like myself again. 'Myself' just then was nauseous and horrified and very, very fed up. "Can you—" I said, and my voice broke off. "Can you do me a calming charm? I think I might crack up if you don't."  
  


The Red Prince held his hand near to the browning bread, and the sizzling of oil quieted suddenly. (So it wouldn't burn.) Then, kneeling next to me, he put his hand in the small of my back and, slowly, a massive warmth floated up the length of my spine and bloomed in the back of my head. The terror I'd felt, the disgust, the frustration—didn't go away, but seemed much less important suddenly. His palm on my back was an anchor. He passed his arm around my waist and held on to me. Just held on to me. I breathed.   
  


We picked up again soon enough, and by sunset we'd reached what at first we thought was the caravan from the Ancient Empire. It wasn't. It was a great square encampment, bordered with a fence of stakes. The front was open, and on a raised platform two Lone Wolves stood guard, one with a wand pointed at my chest, the other levelling a crossbow at the Red Prince.  
  


"We're not entertaining," spat the wand-wielder. "Get out."  
  


"We are Godwoken," said the Red Prince. "Fleeing the mercy of the Divine Order. Your Roost came to us with an offer of work."  
  


Somehow— _somehow_ —that stupid play worked. The crossbow guard shot her friend a look. "Godwoken? Prove it."  
  


Both of us, at the same time, were struck with the idea to cast a blessing. So, blessed, we looked at one another, flooding with white light, just for a moment like two companion gods.  
  


The wand-wielder smiled a malevolent smile. "Yeah. Roost'll want to see ya. 'E's up there. Leave yer weapons 'ere."  
  


I shrugged and laid Alexandar's staff at his feet. The Red Prince left his battered two-hander. Roost was dead when we came in.  
  


Sebille whirled around to see us, fresh tears streaking her cheeks and fresh blood running down her chin.  
  


"Hey." Ifan, crouching over the corpse of the man who must have been Roost, shot us a two-fingered salute.  
  


There was a third person in the room, a smallish elven girl with a rag tied over her eyes. She was young. She could have been Sebille's little sister. "Hello," she said brightly, turning her head precisely to the spot where we were standing. "You are here. Thank you."  
  


"You're—er—welcome," I said briskly, taking a step forward. "My name's—"  
  


"Safiya bin-Zayna," she bubbled. "I am Saheila daughter of Tovah. And," she said, turning her head with such alarming precision that I wondered if she couldn't somehow see through her grimy blindfold, "the Red Prince, skin-of-sun. I see the all of you."  
  


"Do you now," he said evenly.  
  


"It's a greeting," I whispered.  
  


He nodded, subtly, for my benefit, and went on smoothly: "I imagine the pleasure is mine."  
  


Saheila grinned.  
  


Ifan straightened, working the creases out of a stained piece of paper he must have taken from Roost. "Reckon we haven't got long before someone comes up to check on the boss. When that happens, we're—" He cast a glance at Saheila. "—we'll have a problem."  
  


"Supposing the two of us take it on faith," began the Red Prince, indicating me, "that this chaos will all be explained at the first opportunity, what is the current plan?"  
  


Ifan cleared his throat and looked in Sebille's direction, with the air of a toddler about to confess to eating all the cookies. "I had. . .an idea. One of these guys had a fire scroll on him, and—this place is nothing but wood. . ."  
  


" _Live_ wood," Sebille snapped.  
  


"I know."  
  


" _They are already uprooted, Sebille,_ " Saheila piped up, speaking in Elvish. " _They are not themselves now._ "  
  


Sebille said nothing. She went and knelt beside the corpse of Roost and began to saw off one of his purpling hands.  
  


"I don't see another way we can take a whole. . .camp full of Lone Wolves," said Ifan gruffly. "We're lucky, maybe a few of them will jump ship." He didn't sound convinced. "And one of us'd ought to take Saheila and slip out of the fight."  
  


"I am a good healer," said Saheila. "But I do not survive this battle."  
  


"Are these all Lone Wolves in here?" I asked.  
  


Ifan nodded. "They are."   
  


"Then—then you should go with Saheila, shouldn't you? You don't want—to—"  
  


He smiled. "Don't think I don't appreciate what you're trying to do, but it is what it is. I've picked my side. That and I'm a bad sneak."  
  


"Not a _bad_ sneak, dearest, but you _would_ get caught." Sebille stood, and made to stow away the severed hand in her pack. The blood was drying on her chin. "And once again, we're prattling the day away as our time runs out, so. . .Saheila and I will meet you at the elven camp." She stooped and whispered something in Saheila's ear, then disappeared out the nearest window—Saheila, with a little squeak, followed after her.  
  


"So," said Ifan. "Either of you know how to make a bomb of a fire scroll?"  
  


"Yes, as a matter of fact," said the Red Prince. "Well, it is a bomb by its nature, but I imagine you want to detonate it at a distance?"  
  


"That's the idea." Ifan peeked out through the window, down at the other buildings that made up the camp. "Too bad that other piece is so damn far. We can't hit both with one scroll."  
  


"And nor do we need to. If the other building is set alight, we can assume that the occupants will either go up in flames, or run from the fallout. Those on the bottom floor of this building will, of course, run upstairs to find the perpetrator. How many can there be? A handful?"  
  


"And the gate guards. Firewater and. . ." Ifan screwed up his eyes. "The other one."  
  


"They will all have to enter through the same door," the Red Prince pointed out. "A negligible effort simply. . ." He carved something into the air with his finger, and the same shape gouged itself into the floor in front of the doorway. ". . .to set a rune."  
  


Ifan folded his arms. "That won't do it."  
  


"Not on its own merit, granted. But the chaos should be more than sufficient to give us the advantage. Why so contrary all of a sudden?"  
  


"You're right," said Ifan, although he shot a glance out the far window, as if he regretted not leaving when he'd had the chance. "All right, then." He searched several of his pockets and came up with a crumpled fireball scroll—then, crossing the room, he grabbed something off one of Roost's shelves, I didn't see what, but something heavy and round. He took what might have been a frayed bowstring, looped and fastened to his belt, and tied the scroll and the round thing together with a fast, precarious knot. "Here," he said, handing his contraption to the Red Prince. "Reckon your arm's better."  
  


"Modest," I said.  
  


He grinned crookedly back at me, despite the thing we were about to do. "Commander's work. I'm delegating."  
  


The Red Prince, whose gaze was cast outside onto the parallel building, stiffened—I suppose he was sour that he wasn't the one doing the delegating. He said nothing, only flicked his thumb, and the false bomb glowed in his hand. Gracefully he drew back and threw it; it soared and broke the second-floor window. The explosion was loud enough to make my ears ring even at a distance. As expected, people shouted. And as expected, footsteps thundered up toward us.  
  


The first fellow to break down the door stepped hard onto the fire rune and his leg was blown away up to the hip—the way he screamed, I still hear it now. But it worked; the other three fell over him, panicked, Ifan put one of them down with a bolt through the throat before the man knew what was happening. The remaining two made it into the room—I wished for my staff. One, a lizard woman, threw herself at me, a blade in each hand. I tried to summon up something, anything, but she was too close and I couldn't think, I just scrambled away, tripped over my own feet and ended up on the ground, and I felt her sink one of her knives into my belly and rake it up as though she was gutting a fish. I didn't get up after that.  
  


Time snagged, just as it had that afternoon, terror or pain flung me minutes or hours ahead—I blinked and the fight was over.  
  


The pain was like the worst cramp I'd ever felt, and my brain was dull with dread.   
  


"Ah, fuck, Saf," sighed Ifan, kneeling beside me. "Is it bad?"  
  


"This was my good set of robes," I murmured, but he didn't seem to hear me. "Help me stand," I said. He heard that, and held out a strong hand to me.  
  


And I stood. And I felt my insides starting to dribble out through the cut in my stomach—felt _air, cold air_ breezing over my organs—and I made a sound I've never made, one I hope I never make again.   
  


I was on the floor again, shaking as if I had a bad fever, shaking so badly I was beating the back of my head sore on the floorboards. I was afraid to breathe.   
  


Someone's hand touched my hair, settled beneath my head, stopping me from bashing it into the ground with my twitching. I realised I had my eyes closed. The Red Prince was there when I opened them. "Hydrosophist, heal thyself," he suggested. "Assuming, of course, you are up to the task." I felt his hand heat, felt it in the nape of my neck.  
  


" _Don't,_ " I hissed. I could think of several pyrokinetic tricks he might try, and all of them would hurt me or kill me depending how badly off I was. "You're not going to do anything helpful."  
  


He stopped dead, and the look in his eyes, unguarded, was utterly bewildered.  
  


"We'll catch up with Sebille and Saheila," Ifan decided. "Can you hold out?" he asked me.  
  


"Yeah," I said. I honestly didn't know—I wasn't up to doing anything more than a wash. I didn't want to know. I couldn't have dealt with it.  
  


"Very well, then," said the Red Prince, scooping me up, it seemed, without the slightest difficulty. I held my breath. "Something of a _déjà vu,_ this," he added, lowly, to me. I had no idea what he was on about.  
  


I would have been happy to doze on the way, but Saheila told me later that I might have died if I'd drifted off. Ifan took it upon himself to keep me talking.  
  


"Still with us, Saf? What's the capital of Mezd?"  
  


If I'd had a drop of life in me, I would have used it to laugh. "You're mad. Mezd is the capital. All the rest is desert."  
  


"Just making sure."  
  


"You know there was a poet named ben-Mezd," I said. "Afra ben-Mezd, I think she lived around the 11th century Deorum."  
  


Ifan cleared his throat. "'Bin-Mezd', isn't it? For a woman?"  
  


"Yeah," I said. "But she wasn't always a woman. Sometimes she would write as Afra and sometimes Afzal, but she always used 'ben'." I paused, relaxing into the rhythm of the Red Prince's smooth, certain strides, and then remembered to keep talking. "Er. Afra wrote about wine and women. Afzal. . .he wrote about men, and the gods. We know they were one person, and not—twins or partners, because they wrote a few verses simply as 'ben-Mezd', the son of Mezd. . .therein, er. . .identifying themselves with both Afra and Afzal."  
  


"I'll be sure to put them on my reading list," said Ifan—but I hoped I heard a note of real interest.  
  


"I had a volume of their poetry as a child," I said. "In the back cover there was an engraving, or a woodcutting, or something, of Afzal, and in the front there was Afra. That's the first time I remember falling in love with someone."  
  


"Afra or Afzal?"  
  


"Both—they were the same person, weren't they?" I chuffed. "No. I'm lying. It was Afra."  
  


He grinned back at me over the Red Prince's shoulder. "I think mine was a tavern maid, the first time I set foot in a big town. Not as good of a story."  
  


"That's sweet. How old were you?"  
  


"Pff, search me. Seven or ten. I thought she had pretty hair."  
  


"Oh, sweetheart."  
  


They laid me down in a tent somewhere when we reached Saheila's camp, and I woke up alone, in clean robes, in much less pain and without the screaming feeling of my insides being misplaced.  
  


I lay there for a while, strangely content, struggling to remember what I was doing there and what I wanted to do eventually. Saheila came to find me, and we talked for a long time about the specifics of healing, of healing with Hydrosophy or Source or combining the two. (She has a very elvish take.) Finally she pulled away a corner of the tent's floor-cover, revealing the grass beneath, and had me put my ear to the wet earth and listen for the roots of the Ancestor trees, and—incredibly—I felt that Source pearl, in its hollow in my body where Amadia had put it, I felt that pearl grow.  
  


The elves replaced my ruined robes with a gown of a thick, dull blue fabric, and the staff I'd given up in the Lone Wolves' camp—Alexandar's staff—with a simple, heavy rod of ash. It was deceptively plain-looking, but it held and conducted magic with a terrifying ease.  
  


In the morning we're to push farther north and find the caravan of the Red Princess, if we can.  
  


When I came out of my tent, still moving gingerly, the others were sitting around a bonfire in the centre of the camp. The fire seethed at me, overleaping its stone pit. I touched Ifan's shoulder and he startled, jerking away from me. "In Lucian's name," he cursed absently. "Saf."  
  


"I'm sorry," I said. "I wanted to ask you how you were doing." The fact that he'd been caught off-guard by the likes of me didn't speak in his favour.  
  


"I appreciate it, but you don't have to worry after me," he said shortly.  
  


"Oh. All right."  
  


"Alexandar's alive. If Roost was telling the truth, two bolts in the chest and a trip to the Hall of Echoes didn't do the trick. We might get more Lone Wolves after us," he went on, before I had time to process that. "They're being contracted to kill Godwoken. Don't ask me why."  
  


"That's not good for us," I said lamely.  
  


"Eat something, if you can. We're here for the night. Saheila patched you up?"  
  


"She did." I found Saheila as I spoke, sitting beside a tall elven woman I guessed was her mother. She waved at me, seeing me, again, despite her blindfold. I waved back—then I realised she was beckoning me.  
  


" _This is Safiya bin-Zayna,_ " Saheila told her mother as I approached them.  
  


" _The good, the bad, the all,_ " her mother said shortly, smiling at me. " _My name is Tovah. Thank you for bringing my child to safety._ "  
  


" _It was more like she brought me to safety_ ," I said, airily, but Tovah frowned at me.   
  


" _Your injury pains you?_ "  
  


" _No, no,_ " I rushed, " _it's much better now. Thank you. And thank you for the new robes and the staff._ "  
  


" _They are not new,_ " said Saheila, and apparently she was being terribly cheeky, because her mother gave her an ironsided smile.  
  


" _That's a good trick, Saheila,_ " I said, to break the tension. " _Can you really see through that blindfold?_ "  
  


" _I can take off the blindfold. It doesn't make much difference,_ " said Saheila matter-of-factly. " _I have no eyes. I use my farsight._ "  
  


" _What. . .happened? To your. . .if you don't mind my asking?_ "  
  


Saheila paused for a long time. I thought I had offended her and was on the point of apologising when she spoke. " _I want you to see the spirits in the room of Roost, before they leave. But they are gone by the time you come. Sebille knows._ "  
  


" _Oh,_ " I said.  
  


" _She takes a tent—there,_ " Saheila pointed. " _Eat, if you are hungry, and then go to her._ "  
  


I thanked her and stood up to find food, but Tovah put a hand on my arm.  
  


" _Some of our kin do not trust him,_ " she said, in hushed tones despite the fact we were speaking in Elvish.  
  


" _Sorry?_ " I asked, although I had a pretty good idea who she was talking about.  
  


" _The lizard Prince. Some of us do not sleep tonight. Do you trust him?_ "  
  


I sighed, asking myself the question. " _I can promise you he won't make any trouble. He's nothing to gain from it._ "  
  


Tovah only stared me down.  
  


" _. . .I trust him,_ " I reiterated at last. Gods help me, but I think it was the truth. Mostly.  
  


I ate, and then found Sebille in her tent. "Knock, knock," I said, feebly, parting the tent flaps so she wouldn't think I was trying something.  
  


"Who's there?" she asked, motioning for me to come in.  
  


"I haven't really got a joke, sorry. D'you mind if I ask you ab—what happened to Saheila?"  
  


She exhaled. "I don't mind. Unless, of course, you don't want your evening ruined."  
  


"She said there were ghosts in Roost's study, that I'd just missed them."  
  


"Our dearest, dearest Roost was after Godwoken. Scions among the elves, I'm certain you know. Young seers. He had this charming habit of abducting them from their families and torturing them for information before he granted them the mercy of death." As she spoke, her tone was more and more pleasant, and her hands clenched more and more tightly into white-knuckled fists.  
  


"Saheila is a Scion, is she?"   
  


"Roost Anlon cut out her eyes," said Sebille, flatly—she was past the point of irony. "That was the last time. This time he was beating the life out of her when Ifan and I came in."  
  


"Oh."  
  


She was quiet.  
  


"And—" My stomach turned. "—and the ghosts?"  
  


"Frightened little children," began Sebille, and her voice actually wavered, "who died in such pain and confusion that they couldn't move on. They'd shackled their souls to Roost's, without ever wanting to do it."  
  


"And you freed them."  
  


"Thank the gods." She laughed to herself. "For whatever the gods' favour is worth anymore. Do you know, I remembered the funniest thing."  
  


"What's that?" I asked, apprehensive.  
  


" _I_ was a Scion, too, in my tribe. A Prime Scion at that, the plummy sort that turns into a tree. Needless to say, that wasn't quite my vision for my future. But then," she added, forcing a chuckle, "neither was what came afterward."  
  


Prime Scions spend every waking moment being worshiped or worshiping. "You really forgot?"  
  


"Just fascinating what a few short years of bitterest captivity will do to a girl's memory, isn't it? Doesn't come highly recommended, I promise."  
  


"Thanks for the tip," I said, cautiously going along with her joke.  
  


We chatted a while longer before Ifan came in and politely booted me out of the tent. I suppose they'd agreed on it beforehand. I still felt a bit betrayed. I skulked back to the same tent I'd woken up in. A soft drizzle was just starting up, and I prayed it wouldn't get worse, or the rain would seep straight through the roof.  
  


The Red Prince stepped inside and, as though he was picking up a conversation we'd just started, said: "You ought to carry a short blade. Or—at the very least—you might put that staff to better use in a fight."  
  


"Well, good evening. Are you with me tonight?" I stubbornly ignored whatever double meaning I might have put into my question.  
  


"Unless you've a mind to turn me away," he answered. "I can't think _why_ the fancy would strike you to do so, but I would sooner sleep in the rain and escape with my dignity than impose my company upon you."  
  


I had no idea what was happening. Was he teasing? "You're not sleeping in the rain, for one thing," I said. "Don't be ridiculous. Come lie down, _emri._ "  
  


"A lacking invitation at best, but I think I'll oblige you." He lay beside me—I could feel the sudden subtle warmth of him nearby.  
  


"Thank you very much," I said. "I'm sorry if I was a bit curt earlier. What I meant was that—if you'd tried to close it, my—" I put my hand on my stomach, feeling the tender stripe of a fresh scar, "—it wouldn't have done any good, because it was all fiddly internal stuff. But—I know you were trying to help. So. Sorry."  
  


"And how, exactly, do you presume to divine that which I was trying to do?" He sighed. "You are forever making such high-minded inferences. I suppose you fancy yourself the better strategist."  
  


I yawned and turned on my side. It had only been a couple of hours since I woke up in camp, but I was ready for bed (and definitely in no mood for games).  
  


When I woke again, it was still dark, and the rain was skittering on the roof of the tent like a fevered drum, and I felt my blood rushing through me, felt every fibre of the heavy robe chafing against my body, and the tattered trousers clinging close to my legs. I felt each hair on my shins, compressed by layers of cloth.  
  


I sat up, breathing hard, and tried to get my bearings. The Red Prince was kneeling to my side, with his hands on his thighs. "What time is it?" I asked. "When did the rain start?"  
  


"It's been raining for hours," he answered. "This torrent, however, began a small half-hour ago."  
  


"Oh." I tried to lie down again, but every—tiny—sound—and—sensation was so vivid. Lying still was the worst. I wanted to take my clothes off and go sit at the bottom of a lake or something. Until the rain passed. "Why are you awake?"   
  


"I could put the same question to you. In fact, I suppose I ought to: are you quite well, Safiya?"  
  


I'm not used to that quiet, honest tone from him. It still leaves me a little dumbstruck. "I'm fine," I said, once I'd untied my tongue. "Well, I—it's not the stab wound, that's healing, I'm not in pain." I lay back and tried to slow my breathing.  
  


"But?" he prompted.  
  


"'s the rain. It sets me off lately. Normally I'm meant to feel just enough so I can find an injury. . .but—there's too much. I feel _every fucking thing._ "  
  


"Everything?"  
  


"Everything!" I said, sitting up again. "My robes, the ground, the blankets, the little breeze from outside, every bloody thing."  
  


"Everything," he murmured, and this time I heard the smile in his voice.   
  


He ran a finger down the centre of his bare chest—and I felt it on mine, _his_ finger with its smooth warm tip drawing a path between my breasts, and the very end of his claw making a feather-light parallel trail. I shuddered. "It's like you're touching me."  
  


"What do you think?" he asked. " _I_ think this bears a bit of investigation."  
  


I shuffled closer. "What d'you want to do, then?"  
  


He laughed lowly in the dark. "If your theory is correct, you won't need to do a thing. Is that what you want?"   
  


"Yes," I said, suddenly dry-mouthed.  
  


"Perfect." He stood(—I was glad he'd kicked the habit of sleeping in his greaves, at least for the night—) and did away slowly with his underthings.  
  


It was the strangest thing. Me there in my robes and everything—but I felt the cloth fall away, brush my thighs and my ankles on its way down. I saw the contours of him in the dim moonlight as he kneeled before me again and. . .gently touched the side of his own face. I blushed hot as a kettle, feeling the warmth of his palm on my cheek. He ran his thumb back and forth, catching my eyelash. I wondered if he'd have dared to do it himself—it was such a drivelly, affectionate little gesture. I wondered who it was meant for.  
  


But he changed his mind quickly enough, and moved his hand down between his thighs, floating his fingertips over the slit there, tracing its perimeter. I held my breath as heat swelled in the same spot in me—he rubbed firmly with sweltering fingers, I was caught spellbound between watching him move and feeling what was happening to me. It seemed like hours before his cock emerged, slick and eager, and when he took it in his hand I felt its warm weight in mine. Reflexively I closed my hand, but he didn't feel me the way I did him. It didn't matter. He made long, mellow strokes, hardly demanding, but each one was a blaze. I tried to keep from bucking my hips.  
  


"I can feel—" I marvelled, even as my lower body wound tight with impatience, "—I can feel exactly how near you are."  
  


And he stopped _cold._ I felt it in my core like an ebbing wave, like stepping out of a hot bath into a freezing room.  
  


I breathed out. "Why in the name of the gods?"   
  


"This is rather a one-sided endeavor for my tastes," he said evenly, but not without that calculating smile.  
  


"You know I'll feel whatever you feel."  
  


"I want a sign in that case. I haven't your magic to rely on, after all."  
  


I bit my lip. "You could touch me."  
  


"Not tonight," he said, and part of me was thrilled to think there might be other nights. Another part was sad. "Not," he amended, "with this unique opportunity at our disposal."  
  


". . .I could recite a bit of verse," I suggested, grinning despite myself. "It's dark as Rhalic's arsehole in here, but you can hear my voice. That's always what I like best."  
  


"Interesting. Go on, then."  
  


The first and only thing that came to my mind was one of those terrible dry schoolbook poems.   
  


"How sweet the summer sun in gold array," I half-whispered, tentative. He took himself in hand again and—didn't make a move otherwise, except to warm his hand with his magic, so that a huge, relieved heat spread between my legs again. "How. . .bitter," I sighed, "the success of dusk to day."  
  


"Tripe," he said.  
  


"I know. Don't stop."  
  


He palmed his cock intently, with a red-hot hand—I shook, it was so much all at once—pulsed, anticipating the end.  
  


"H-how—how salt the air when— _mm_ —when lovers sail away—"  
  


I held my breath. He slowed his pace a little. I thought I might get the last line out. "How—gods. How h- _hopeless_ then, the w—ahh—" He drew his hand away again. I groaned and doubled over. "—aaahhhfuck off, you're doing it to spite me."  
  


"I, for one, have another round in me at the very least." He didn't even have the decency to sound disappointed—that smug smile—I couldn't see it, but it underlined his every word.  
  


Three more times. Three more times he took us to the point of our end and then pulled his idiot bastard hand away again. After the second time I lay on my back, with my hands pinned beneath me—as frustrated as I was, I wanted to see it through—I wanted him to be the one to finish me.  
  


I had to bite hard into my cheek to keep quiet when he decided we'd subsided enough, and ran his hand gently over the length of his shaft. "How—how—" I stammered, "how—I'm going to fucking leave if you don't do it this time, I'm going to walk out of this tent how sweet the sum—summer sun in. . .all its—bloody—"  
  


"In gold array," he said tenderly. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream.  
  


"—in gold array. Please, please—h-how bitter the—the— _success_ —" He stroked himself hard—once—and went back to his gentle, slow pace. It was so sharp, like a pain, I sobbed. "—dusk to day— _emr_ — _emri_ —"  
  


"Once more," he encouraged me. "You're halfway there already."  
  


"How salt the air—god, gods, when— _ah_ —" He touched himself roughly, with a sudden new intent, challenging me. I was going to win the race. "—sail away lovers sail away how hopeless! _Emri!_ How hopeless then the wish that love should stay—" I gasped for breath, and then finally, finally, _finally_ he brought us off and I did cry out, writhing, drenched with sweat, one hard surprised _"ah"_. There were no aftershocks, just a glowing, shivering relief. I pulled my numb hands out from under me and stretched them to get the blood back into them.   
  


I tried to peel myself off the floor, and then I decided I didn't care. The Red Prince lay beside me. "What a divine sound that was," he murmured into my ear.  
  


"Wasn't my plan," I said, blushing, hoping no one in the camp had heard. "Just, it was so much stronger than I'm used to," I said, once I had my breath back. "Is it always like that for you? One—you know—one. . .great—blow, and then that's all?"  
  


"I suppose that is one way to name it. You have a very rare point of comparison, however. I am not so fortunate."  
  


"And then how do you stay so—collected? _Five times_ , and you don't make a sound."  
  


"I know the touch of my own hand," he said simply.   
  


"Mm. Well, thank you." I turned on my side towards him, and he laid his head on my outstretched arm.  
  


"Much more agreeable than tossing and turning all night, the martyr of your own magic."  
  


"Much. Thank you." I reached out exhausted, absentminded and touched his shoulder, his chest, everywhere I could reach. The rain was letting up. We nodded off just like that, tangled up together and with the sound of drops fading above us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you don't know how excited i was when the "hydrosophy overload = feeling other people's sensations" thing came up. the possibilities are. endless.


	14. Day 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breaking: four grown adults don't know what an elephant is

I actually did wake up warm and content today, snug in my heavy robes and in the arms of the Red Prince (imagine me writing that sentence a month ago.) At least—I was content until I remembered what sort of a day we had ahead of us.  
  


" _Emri,_ ” I mumbled.  
  


He stirred beside me.  
  


I nudged him. "You should get dressed before one of the elves comes to wake us."  
  


Sighing, he got to his feet. I watched him dress, not without savour.  
  


The four of us left at the end of the morning, after Saheila had seen to me again to make certain I was healed enough, and after Tovah and the others had loaded our packs with dried meat and fruit.   
  


"We, er, we know what our next stop is," Ifan told me as we set out. He was refusing to look me in the eye. "It's, er. . ."  
  


"The Nameless Isle," put in Sebille smoothly. "We've reason enough to believe that's where our young bishop has scuttled off to. And if it happens to be my lucky day, perhaps I'll run into a dear, dear, dear friend."  
  


I blinked. "But we're not. . .Sourced out yet, are we? I know Saheila did something or other—but—"  
  


"No, we're no masters just yet," Sebille agreed. "And it'll take a master to take down a Master," she added, smiling to herself. "But it's only good policy to keep your eyes on the prize, isn't it?" She didn't seem to expect an answer, which was good, because I didn't have one.  
  


The stranded caravan of the Ancient Empire wasn't far out after all, _maybe_ five miles. And the Red Prince had what they call a spring in his step, so we pushed through the tough terrain at a good pace, mounting gnarled roots that grew in heaps between the oldest trees. One fight on the way; a brown bear. Ifan tried to talk it down, but it swung its great skullcracker of a paw at him and then it was business.  
  


"Should've gone the long way round," muttered Ifan, toeing the massive, furry carcass. "I think we just blundered into her territory and orphaned a few cubs."  
  


"Are you worried for the little ones?" asked Sebille—teasing, but softly. "We can have a frank word with them if we meet them."  
  


"And Zorl-Stissa wept," said the Red Prince irritably. "We attack when threatened, just as any creature of this forest does."  
  


Ifan stuck his hands in his pockets. "We'd ought to've stayed out of her way. 'S what clever animals do." But we kept on.  
  


The first sign of the caravan was a grey beast so big we could see flashes of it through the trees half a mile away. It was an idle thing. It took one step the entire time we were approaching, but that step made the ground under our feet shudder. "What the fuck is that?" I hissed.  
  


"It—" began the Red Prince, "—oh. Its name in your tongue. . .has escaped my memory."  
  


"Mine too," said Ifan, squinting as though he was looking into the sun. "This makes two I've ever seen. Great big bastards."  
  


"Superb pack animals, in terms of intimidation value if not efficiency," added the Red Prince.  
  


"It's not going to eat us, is it?" I asked him.  
  


"Please. They are lumbering creatures. They only deign to eat that which surpasses them in their stupidity, which is to say, bushes and tree-bark. Now—being trampled. _There_ is a true danger."  
  


"You'll be taking point, of course," chirped Sebille. (I was very ready to agree with her.)  
  


The Red Prince smiled—not at her, but to himself, or to an invisible onlooker. "Of course."  
  


So we wound through the forest, with the Red Prince at our head, Sebille and me behind him, and Ifan at the back, into a clearing where several carts were moored and several pissed-off merchants were chewing herbs and dragging their feet. One of them spat a brown gob as I passed him—I don't think he was even being rude, I think he was done with his mouthful and needed to spew it somewhere, and he just wasn't bothered whether or not I was standing there. That type.  
  


Sweat sprung in my armpits and the palms of my hands as we edged past the enormous grey beast. Up close, I saw its leathery skin, and the many drapes and decorations it had been dressed in, and which it seemed unhappy about. There were several rings pierced through each great flapping ear. It could have squashed us flat in a heartbeat, if it wanted to. Ifan stopped short beside it. "Hail, big friend," he said quietly.  
  


Its nose—long and thin as a hosepipe—roiled, halfheartedly, and it trumpeted something in response. Ifan grinned. "Can't argue that." Then Sebille grabbed his hand and tugged him along to keep pace, because the Red Prince had found what he was looking for and wouldn't stop for anything now.  
  


Sadha was exactly the way I'd imagined her. Even though I wasn't the one who had seen her in my dreams. . .she was the picture of the Red Princess. Tall—and taller because she stood straight as a poker—and her every move was graceful: unhurried, but designed, like a slow river. Her scales, ruby red, caught the spring-green sunlight and turned it into shimmers of pink and gold across their gleaming backs. Dressed all in gold finery to boot, she was blinding. Fine chains were draped beneath her slit dress, their tiny silver charms sparkling against her thighs. And she did smell overwhelmingly, addictively of jasmine.  
  


The Red Prince stood speechless before her—she was delighted herself, but she folded her hands and smiled to let him know there was no rush to act.  
  


"My—my lady," he said at last, with that tremble in his voice I'd heard when he spoke about her before. He dropped to one knee and took her slender hand, rich with rings.  
  


I had trouble not falling to my own knees when she spoke. The sweetness in her voice wasn't for me, but I breathed it in all the same, like drudanae smoke. She tilted her head to the side, as if she thought he was quaint. "My prince. You are every bit the gentleman they said you'd be."  
  


Sebille was beside me, and already starting to get bored. She shifted from one foot to the other and checked around us for threats, as she always does. Ifan on my other side was perfectly at ease. I suppose he's done this sort of thing often: job done, stand and look mercenary-like until they put the coin in your hand.   
  


For my part, I tried not to stare—not at the Prince, not at the Princess, not at the grass under my feet. I heard them speak, but I wasn't listening to their words. I was hearing the Prince's tone, breathy, almost shy—and Sadha, her voice deep and songlike and quietly amused. At some point they stopped speaking Common. I didn't even register the difference until the Red Prince said my name.  
  


"Safiya—" he said, turning back to us, and caught himself. "—the three of you—kindly find somewhere else to be."  
  


I stood still for half a second, figuring out why we were leaving—and then I saw the way he and Sadha were looking at one another, and my blood froze. (Fine—I knew it was coming, but in my defense I didn't think it was going to be _on the spot._ I thought at worst I was going to witness the sugary beginning of their fairytale courtship.)  
  


"As you like, my prince," I said stiffly. I don't know what he told her, but I imagine we were supposed to be his hired blades, or at best his awestruck traveling companions, so I tried to look the part as I turned my back and followed Ifan out of the clearing the way we'd come.  
  


I cast a glance back over my shoulder to see them climb the steps into Sadha's cabin, hand in hand. And I swear to you, not a minute had passed before we heard her high cry, soaring out into the thick forest air.  
  


Ifan grimaced. "We'll put some more distance between us and them, will we?"  
  


"Let's do," said Sebille.   
  


We went back in the direction of the elven camp, but Ifan thought we might use the afternoon to hunt, and to draw out a path to Mordus, the next (hopefully last) Source master we'd need to find. So we did. Ifan went out, crossbow in hand, and Sebille taught me a bit about sparring. The first thing she did was pick my staff up off the grass and close it in her hands.  
  


"You know, this is really a weapon the like of any blade, in the right hand." She pointed it at me and pretended to jab it hard into my chest. "I do miss the crack of a breaking rib ever so much."  
  


"Not mine, please," I grinned.   
  


"I know, dearest. Here, take it back, and see how you fare against my little dagger. I'll be gentle," she promised. "And if I'm not, we'll haul you back to visit Saheila."  
  


She was as good as her word, and nicked me several times before I got the hang of the staff. I was treating the weapon like a funnily-shaped shield at first, trying to put it exactly where the point of Sebille's dagger was going to land.   
  


"That isn't the smartest way," she explained. "Actually, I don't expect it even ranks. Don't look at the blade, look at the body behind it. Here." She mimed stabbing me, holding her blade an inch from my stomach. "You want to stop the dagger, but it isn't going to work. Look at my wrist. You could bring down the staff and break it. You could break my elbow for that matter."  
  


I spun the staff, slowly, and tapped her on the wrist with it. "Like that?"  
  


She snickered. "I think you might have given me a fraction of a bruise."  
  


We fought in earnest then ("if you hurt me," she said, "you'll heal me. If I hurt you, I'll hurry you back to camp."), it was like nothing I'd ever done. Sweat was flying, and my body was aching within minutes, but there was a kind of focus I'd never felt before. Nothing mattered except making sure her blade didn't end up inside me. Then we swapped weapons, and it was even worse. I couldn't get a single strike in but she wicked me away, effortlessly, and for her own part she threw several mean blows so that I had staff bruises on my forearms, shins, thighs and sides, and felt a bit like I'd been turned to soup from the inside. But it feels good to work at something. And it stops your mind from wandering.  
  


Ifan came back with two hares, and sat down to skin one just as Sebille and I were putting our weapons away. I sat beside him to watch him work, and he blew out a breath and, without taking his eyes off his knife, asked, "Not my place, Saf, I know, but what exactly—is the situation with—?"  
  


"With the slaver prince, is what he means, dearest," prompted Sebille.  
  


I bit my lip. "I don't think that's fair. The fact is he hasn't ruled a day in his life."  
  


She sniffed. "Do you suppose his first decree will be to free all the poor sweet exploited people who keep his empire alive?"  
  


I was supposing a lot of things just then, and I had no wish to say it all. "I think we'll have to wait and see. He's not. . .entirely blinded. . .by tradition, anyway."  
  


"Sweetest, I won't tell you what you sound like," said Sebille, "because I know you know."  
  


I did know. Traitor; turncoat: whatever she had in mind for me.  
  


"To answer your question," I told Ifan, wincing at the sound as he scraped another patch of skin away from the dark meat, "I haven't the fucking foggiest. Nothing, now," I added, half-convinced.  
  


Ifan shrugged. "I don't trust him for Emperor, and I definitely don't trust him for Divine."  
  


"What about as the f—" I put a hand over my mouth to cover my sudden idiot grin. "Lucian's exalted ballsack."  
  


He turned to me, and nicked his thumb with his knife while he was distracted. " _Ow._ Son of a bitch. Why're you so excited?"  
  


Excited was definitely not the right word. I breathed in. "Well—the prophecy of the House of Dreams is that. . .the Red Prince and the Red Princess, at their. . .coupling, will, er, give rise to dragons. As in, dragons are meant to come back again."  
  


"Dragons for the Emperor," sighed Sebille. "Of course. Maybe the gods could send him a fleet of flaming warships, as well, just in case a bit of Rivellon survives the bloodbath."  
  


"Don't give 'em ideas," said Ifan dryly. "Reckon that was worth knowing before we carted him all the way north."  
  


"Sorry," I said. "It just occurred to me."  
  


We went back when the sun started to set, and when we descended into the thick of the forest again, Ifan froze. He stood for a few instants, and then relaxed. "Thought I heard something. Quiet now." And he was right: by the time we got to the clearing, everything was quiet. The Red Prince was at the epicentre of several scattered corpses, with his greatsword slowly slipping out of his grasp. He was dressed, and his shirt was smeared with red, but on his hands and his arms, so blood-red already, the blood seemed colourless, like droplets of water. At the very edge of my hearing was a low sound—I thought maybe one of the corpses wasn't quite dead, but no, the Prince himself was chanting something in that hard, percussive language of the Ancient Empire. His eyes were closed. I ran for him, don't ask me why, and when I was near he opened his eyes again and the look in them was so utterly lost. I took him in my arms. He finally dropped the sword and held onto me, balling his hands in the heavy fabric of my robe.  
  


Straightening, he held me at arm's length and observed me for a moment—then looked away, sighing. "Sadha is gone."  
  


"What d'you mean, gone? She's not—" Heart dropping into my sandals, I made to turn around, but he caught me and, not unkindly, turned my face back to his.   
  


"You won't find her among them. She is alive, as far as I know. Spirited away by. . ." He looked with disgust at the nearest corpse, that of a pasty white lizard. ". . .Not the House of Shadows. Some other interloper, who. . . _claimed_ that—"  
  


"Just be easy, _emri._ "  
  


"I—" He swallowed. "Yes. . . .Yes. His claim was that. . .my Princess is betrothed to another king."  
  


"What? But—" I stared. Wasn't there every bit of evidence to say that they were made for each other? "What _king?_ "  
  


He glared back at me, _'I know'._ "It cannot be any king of Rivellon. For one, none ought to know of Sadha's existence, and for another—the sheer bloody outrage! No sensible ruler would expect to slight the Empire thus and come away unscathed!"  
  


"Well. . .now what?" I asked.  
  


"I haven't a whit. I truly don't."  
  


"Might be a good time," said Ifan behind us, on the other side of the ring of bodies, "to look up Mordus. Then we can get off Reaper's Coast, at least."  
  


"Ah. That's right," said the Red Prince, as if he'd honestly forgotten. "Divinity awaits."  
  


"The only thing that awaits tonight is camp," said Sebille sharply. "Given that we haven't made a _step_ today, my prince."  
  


I felt him flare, just for an instant, then all the fight went out of him. "You have. . .my apologies," he said, flatly. "Evidently this was a waste for all parties involved."  
  


"Dragons, though," Ifan pointed out.  
  


The Red Prince shot me a look, and I looked right back. _Yes, I told them, since you wouldn't._ "Well. All the more reason to find my Princess—if only I had the slightest suggestion as to her whereabouts."  
  


"Tough break," said Ifan, and clapped him on the shoulder in his companionable way. I grinned, watching the Red Prince process what had happened in stages ('who the fuck do you think you are' to 'oh, that was a real expression of sympathy' to 'I suppose I'll allow it').  
  


"We might still get word," I offered. "But for now the best thing might be back to camp."  
  


So we went. I don't think the elves were expecting us back, but then _we_ weren't expecting to be laid out for our whole afternoon while the Prince and Princess shook their sheets. So.  
  


They received us kindly enough—if we had worn out our welcome, they gave us no sign of it.   
  


"I am sorry for you," Saheila told the Red Prince when the sky was dark and we were gathered around the fire again. Not that anyone had told her, but she was still a far-seer. "I think that you do find her. Don't give up."  
  


He stared at her. I nudged his shoulder with mine. "I—thank you," he said, and cleared his throat. "I appreciate the sentiment."  
  


"Not sentiment," shrugged Saheila. "I see it."  
  


When it came time to take to our tents again, Ifan stopped me. "Want to swap places for the night? You bunk with 'Bille and I handle the prince?"  
  


A wave of gratitude, completely unsuspected, rippled through me. "Thanks, ben-Mezd," I said. "It's not—I'm not—bitter, or. . .I just—"  
  


"Don't have to explain anything to me."  
  


"Thanks." I smiled. "You call her 'Bille?"  
  


"Guess so."  
  


"That's sweet."  
  


"Oh, good," said Sebille when I stepped inside her—our—tent. "I was hoping you'd say yes."  
  


"I—you were?"  
  


"Of course I was. First, I don't have that great lump beside me, snoring like a cave bear. And second, I don't hear your cries of ecstasy at three o'clock in the morning. Why, if I slept at all, I'd sleep like a babe tonight."  
  


I went so flush-faced I felt faint.  
  


She grinned. There was something wicked in it, but also something warm. "Oh, do relax. I'd choose your pretty voice over that of the lizard any day of the year. And it's not like you were the only couple. . .coupling. Never are in these camps."  
  


"That's. . .a relief. I think."  
  


"I don't know what possessed you, though. A young woman of discerning taste."  
  


I smiled. I felt suddenly very safe. Like nothing was life-or-death. "He's not so bad. Not lately, at least. Most of the time."  
  


"Mm."  
  


"I know sometimes it's a bit like, he opens his mouth and a load of Ancient Empire propaganda nonsense falls out, but it's not. . .you know? It's—he's open to other views. Well—" I winced. "I tried it back on the Merryweather and he—"  
  


"I saw that," said Sebille darkly. "Was it Ifan who scraped you off of the floorboards after?"  
  


"Yeah," I said, although I feel like I hardly needed scraping.  
  


"I thought so. If it hadn't been for my own mission, I might have taken my needle and tested the law of double jeopardy."  
  


"Thank you," I said, meaning it.  
  


"But do go on," she sighed. "After that repulsive display of. . .hm. Insecurity? Or false superiority? After that, you were so smitten that—"  
  


"I didn't like him any better than you do," I cut in, "until he started to cool off and act like a normal person."  
  


"Your doing, with your icy fingers," she said, wiggling her own fingers at me.  
  


"Pfft."  
  


We talked well into the night, and when sleep crept up on us, I asked her to braid my hair, since my old braid was the worse for wear. She made a lovely, intricate, sturdy thing of it.


	15. Day 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the long-awaited reunion!

Ulara  
  


Ulara.  
  


Things are fine. We've done some fighting, and I think I'm getting better at it. We dealt with Mordus—an undead dwarf, a Sourcerer—and he gave us more Source. I don't want to put down _how_ he managed it. If I don't write it down, maybe I can forget eventually.  
  


The four of us are getting along fine.

The Red Prince got a missive from someone who knew where Sadha was, or claimed to. Guess what? Nameless Isle! It'll be eventful. what else

Ifan's not doing well—Deathfog—long story I can't put it all down right now  
  


I haven't been writing, not because nothing exciting has happened, but because I don't feel up to it. More than a week now and I feel like an exhausted wreck. Sebille and I lie side by side every night now, but I'm sleeping worse than ever—nightmares, Matis, that dwarf with the red beard, and you as a Monk, more and more often.  
  


So I should say: you looked nothing like I saw you in my dreams.  
  


We finished with Mordus last night, and left at daybreak to come back to Driftwood. To sleep in a bed again, for one thing, but also to buy bolts and what scattered additional bits of armor we could afford. (I finally have proper boots)  
  


When we finished at the market, we went into the inn for drinks, and in the early evening I decided to go out and take a walk around the square. Which was a funny thing for me to decide to do really. Magisters were leading the new Monks to their posts. Until today, every time I saw an elven Monk, my heart would stop beating, but it would never be you. So when I saw you, my heart stopped beating. And I told myself not to be silly. And then it was you.  
  


Something I never noticed about Silent Monks, because I never dared to look close, was that they all have these hell-black eyes. I thought they'd gouged yours at first, but they didn't. It was just that your beautiful brown eyes had turned the colour of dead coals all over. They had shaved your head, too, the thick, chestnut-brown hair you were so proud of and which I loved to touch. Gone. Your eyebrows were barely there, and your cheeks were so gaunt. You were like a skull spanned with skin. Your lips were still the same lips I knew, the ones I couldn't help smiling at when I saw them, such a narrow, pinched mouth with such full lips, like you were always pouting about something. But they were so chapped, islands of dried skin, an ice floe—and someone had pushed a needle between them, making stitch after stitch, so that you couldn't open your mouth (to do what? Not speak. Bite, maybe.)  
  


Your hands were cold as the dead, colder I think than I can make mine even with magic. I wished I was a pyrokinetic, I'd make my hands warm and hold your hands until they were warm, too. For all the good it would do. I kissed the backs of your fingers. I hope you know.  
  


You were there. I know you were there, I saw your spirit, Source-bright 

but faint. The faintest spirit I've ever seen, I've seen a few by now. I wondered what happened to the rest of you, but I know. Now that I've come to my senses a little bit, now that I've broken my nose and sat down to think (we'll get to it), I know that Purging a spirit destroys it for ever. So I know you didn't go anywhere, you just ceased. But there was a little bit of you. I could see the mouth of your spirit forming words, even while the mouth of your body gurgled and hummed.  
  


Here's what I wish to all the gods had happened:  
  


_Slowly, with an effort, your spirit became clearer, blindingly bright in the growing dark. As bright as a strong spirit like yours deserves to be. Your spirit had its long hair, and its sparkling eyes, and its narrow, plump mouth that always had something reproachful about it.  
  
_

_"Safi," you said, and grinned. "I've missed you."  
  
_

_I started blubbering, obviously: I missed you too. I missed you. I'm so sorry.  
  
_

_"Don't fancy my new look then?" You looked with distaste at the swaying body in front of you. "Maybe it's not my favourite, either. But you haven't got a thing to be sorry for, love."  
  
_

_Yes I do yes I do  
  
_

_"This wasn't your doing, Safiya. So unless you've gone and rolled around with someone else while I was on holiday. . ."  
  
_

_I thought you were dead I didn't know I would have come for you  
  
_

_". . .oh," you said. You were hurt, but you smiled sunnily at me. "I love you."  
  
_

_Ula what does that mean  
  
_

_"Just what it means. I love you, that's a fact, and because I love you, I need you to be happy. I can't be here to make you happy, another fact, and because I can't be here to make you happy, I need someone else to do it. You, or someone else. I love you. I hope it's someone pretty."  
  
_

_Then I laughed, and it made me sob harder: Never prettier than you.  
  
_

_"I love you," you said, surprised. "I_ still _love you, even when this is all that's left of me. I love you with everything I have. Still. That's weird."  
  
_

_I love you too more than anything  
  
_

_You laughed at me. You thought I was being trite. "Well, that's that, then. We love each other. And because we love each other, at the end of your very long fulfilling life, I'll come and hold your hand, and show you around the Hall of Echoes. Deal?"  
  
_

_You held out your hand, and I held out mine, and your hand passed through mine like air. You cackled. "Teach you to try shaking hands with a spirit."  
  
_

_Ula I forgot don't laugh at me  
  
_

_"Sorry. Remember this, though—it's an easy one—we love each other."  
  
_

_And then, without any further ceremony, you disappeared.  
_

Here's what actually happened:  
  


Your spirit faded before my eyes. I had no hope of hearing you. Your body suddenly startled, and grabbed my wrist, and then looked around wildly. Then your body narrowed its eyes at me, deciding what to do, and it tore a piece of fabric from the sleeve of its red robe, and pressed the ragged ribbon of cloth into my hand.  
  


And then your body's face slowly went blank again. I understood that you were there, or you had been. I understood that this was your last gesture to me, or to anyone, before you ceased. And I felt the last of you go out into the air, and I opened my mouth as wide as a snake's, and I screamed, without, it seemed, ever needing to breathe. One of the Magisters came up and told me to stop bothering the new Monk, and as I swear, Rhalic's rotted teeth, I fell on him like a wild animal. I must have made a terrible scene. I remember breaking my nose on his forehead, but not much else.  
  


I was still screaming when they hauled me back to their barracks for disturbing the peace. I think they thought I was pissed, and the plan was to hold me until the ale went out of me, but I was as dry as a bone. But I stopped at some point, screaming. I'm told I was there for the whole night and most of the next day, but it felt like I sat in that wooden chair and blinked and then the sun was up.  
  


The Red Prince was the one who found me in the end. Of course he was. He cast a fraction of a glance my way, just to confirm that it was me and not some other bedraggled human woman, and then addressed the tired-looking Magister who'd stashed me in his office. "Good day," he said, inclining his head.  
  


"I hope you're here to take her," sighed the Magister, scratching at his temple, where his hair was grey and patchy.  
  


"I might be persuaded. What's the charge?"  
  


"Well?" asked the Magister, and I suppose he was looking at me, but I had a mouth full of blood and didn't want to speak. He sighed. "Found her being a nuisance to one of our Monks, and when I confronted her, she attacked me."   
  


I looked at the aging Magister then. There was a purple bloom of bruises, dead in the centre of his forehead. He looked back at me. It wasn't a cruel look, or even a resentful one, just tired.   
  


"Been sitting here," he went on, still looking at me, "still as a statue, since last night. Is she all right in the head?"  
  


"Come now," said the Red Prince smoothly. "This cannot by any means be the first instance of those abominable Monks causing distress. They are as much a terror measure as anything else." He indicated me with a sweeping gesture. "Afra is as sane as you yourself are—and so she was last night, if a touch over-refreshed."  
  


"Well." The Magister sighed."I still can't let her go just like that. I need her full name—and yours, sir, if you please—"  
  


The Prince's expression darkened. "Filling out paperwork for petty disturbances is surely the last thing you want to do with your day. And if I may. . ." He placed both hands on the Magister's desk and leaned forward. "While I certainly don't begrudge you the time to bewail your own injuries, my good man, you appear to have left hers utterly unattended to." Smiling grimly, he set his coin pouch down on the desk. "My _strong_ suggestion is this: you take the afternoon off. Afra and I find a healer. Everyone is the happier."  
  


The Magister considered him for an endless moment, then, heaving another huge sigh, hoisted himself up and unlocked my shackles. I gave him a nod and followed the Red Prince out of the barracks.  
  


First, I spat my mouthful of blood into the grass. "Where's Ifan and Sebille?" I croaked.  
  


"Combing the forest, Safiya." He glared back at me with his flaming eyes. "I do hope you have a _bloody_ good story for me."  
  


"Can we find a healer?" I mumbled thickly, realising for the first time how hard it was to breathe. "I can't put my own nose back."  
  


He said nothing.  
  


"The Silent Monk they said I was talking to. That was my—that was Ulara." I took a deep breath through my mouth, marvelling at my own calm. I felt flinty and invincible, like a hard shell was growing around me. "I went off my head."  
  


Still silent, he stopped walking. I went and stood beside him, and his hand came up against mine, so I took it and held onto it tightly. He gave my hand a brief squeeze, and for half a second I felt something so enormous, and white-hot, and painful, I staggered. Then I was all right.  
  


"Thank you for coming to get me," I said.  
  


"Naturally. It occurs to me, however, that you may be the only healer this squalid little village can boast."  
  


But lucky enough, old Prudence at the Black Bull had sorted out more than a few tavern brawls in her time, and had a knack with black eyes and split lips—and broken noses. She said mine was better not touched, since it was only a little crooked, but she did insist on swabbing the cut between my eyes with a minty, eye-watering balm.  
  


I asked for something to drink that wasn't—drink. I got a thick, syrupy tea that tasted of tobacco. (It was alright if you took it in sips.) The longer Ifan and Sebille stayed out, the guiltier I felt.  
  


"I'd die for a stew about now," I said.  
  


The Red Prince looked over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. "You might, considering the composition of the signature dish here."  
  


"I might what?"  
  


He rolled his eyes. "Die, my dear."  
  


"Oh," I said. I looked around us. Nearly everyone else in the tavern was eating. "This doesn't feel right. Should we have said something to the Magister?"  
  


"We hardly need undue attention. Keeping our heads down is, apparently, difficult enough as is," he said pointedly.  
  


"I'm sorry. I hate that I caused so much trouble for the three of you." I took a longer sip of the bitter tea than was sensible, and pursed my lips against the taste. "It was sweet that you picked 'Afra' for my false name."  
  


"A momentary insight. Apt, if I say so myself."  
  


"And me thinking you don't hear a word of it when I talk," I teased.  
  


He only watched me. Somewhere was a clever, noncommittal reply he could have made, but he didn't seem interested in reaching for it.  
  


"I suppose it's off to that shady island now," I said. "And we'll find your princess."  
  


"You ought to concern yourself sooner with the mantle of Divinity. And the shoulder which bears it."  
  


"Not yours?" I asked. "You wouldn't be much put out dueling me, you know. I go down pretty easy."  
  


"But you are obliged to try?" he chuckled.  
  


"Mm. . .I don't know. I don't like. . .I don't like all that power in one place. It's not you," I rushed, "it's not because of you. You could have been—been anyone—I still wouldn't like it. Emperor and dragon-father and Divine. Do you understand?"  
  


He deliberated for a while. "I do," he said at last, quiet. "I cannot agree, but I might claim to understand."  
  


Suddenly I was angry. "You don't really think—"  
  


"Pray. Who does have your support?"  
  


"I want Ifan and Sebille to decide between themselves. And I suppose I'll stand behind whichever one." I blew out a frustrated breath. "For the life of me, I can't think why _I'm_ supposed to have a hand in deciding which sorry idiot is going to be the most powerful god of all time."  
  


"There is always the young Bishop."  
  


"Not when we kill him there won't be," I said hotly. I felt a ripple of fear at my own willingness—eagerness—to murder, but it was much smaller than it had been. I had your face in my mind, and I knew I would do it now.  
  


"Hmm." He observed me with the air of a scholar, mocking. "Let me test my comprehension. Your preference goes equally to Ifan or Sebille. Alexandar marks an improvement over the loss of the world to the Void, but no more said."  
  


"That's right," I said slowly.  
  


"Then. . .if we grant that you and I rank above Alexandar, but below Ifan and Sebille. . .would you nominate yourself over me?"  
  


"Oh, _emri._ " I dropped my head forward onto the table, so that my forehead thunked against the cherry wood. I sat upright again. "Do we have to do this?"  
  


"Better now than at the brink of the great Well. And I say this without a drop of malice, Safiya, if you would suggest a duel again, I consider that a vote for myself."  
  


"Do you know your answer?"  
  


"I do. But I'll have yours first."  
  


"Ugh," I said, and stared into the dregs of my tea as if I could read the fated name of the next Divine in them.  
  


"What, exactly, do you fear I might do as Divine?"  
  


"You're not what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of the Empire."  
  


He frowned. "I am the Empire."  
  


"No, you aren't. The Empire is a load of ideas. Some of those are uglier than others. I worry that—er—the Empire might shape you after those ideas." I cleared my throat. "I think any person in your position would run that risk. Especially if they became Divine."  
  


"Hm."  
  


"But I wouldn't do it myself," I added. "I wouldn't be a god for anything."  
  


"Unless it was to ward away young Alexandar and the yawning Void."  
  


I glowered at him. "Gods live a very, very long time. Me, I want to die at some point. I want to kick up my feet in the Hall of Echoes at some point," (and find my Ulara, but she won't be there because her spirit is purged) "and I _don't_ want to. . .be able to—you know, to sink nations or move mountains. I don't. I—"  
  


Then I had an idea that wrapped itself around my lungs and squeezed. Surely a god-Divine would be able to reassemble Purged spirits. . .or. . .rescue them from oblivion, or. . .  
  


The Red Prince's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. "You've made your point, strange as it is."  
  


"So who's your pick?"  
  


He tapped a claw to his chin. "To begin, my ranking differs from yours in that you and I both take precedence over our companions."  
  


"You're joking. Who's first, then?"  
  


"I am deadly serious, and you shall have that answer another day."  
  


"I thought you already knew!" I spluttered.  
  


"I appear to have changed my mind."  
  


"What in fuck's name does that mean?"  
  


I didn't get my answer in the end—Ifan and Sebille chose that second to walk into the tavern. I jumped to my feet. "Hey."  
  


Ifan smiled halfway, and I saw some of the tension go out of his shoulders. I felt acutely guilty about worrying him—he's had a lot to deal with already. "Good," was all he said. He took a step toward me, then hesitated and patted my shoulder instead. I hugged him. He smelled of rain and wet fur.  
  


"I'm sorry," I said. "I, er, found. . .Ulara. . .she was. She was a Monk. She's—I didn't take it well."  
  


"Ulara?" asked Sebille.  
  


I held my breath for a moment and let it out again. "Someone close to me. She came to the Joy a few months before we did, and—and—"  
  


She crossed her arms. "Is she in the square now?"   
  


"I don't know," I said, feeling tears start up. "Probably."  
  


"I could end her, if you wanted."  
  


Ifan ground his teeth. "In Lucian's name, Sebille."  
  


"It would be a kindness," said Sebille, never taking her eyes off mine. "No one could use her for their own ends again. Give it a thought, sweetest."  
  


My face felt like it crumbled. Here was the flood that had been coming for a full day. Wailing, I went upstairs. Halfway up, I remembered I couldn't get into either of our rooms—but I didn't have to wait long for Ifan to come up with a brass key swinging from his thumb.  
  


"Sorry. She meant well," he mumbled, turning the key in its lock.  
  


I know she did, I wanted to say, but my lungs were heaving. I wondered if you felt the same way: your mind—your spirit—in perfect working order, but your body acting like a dumb animal. I sat on the bed and put my hands on my head, and my head between my knees, and howled. Ifan rubbed awkward circles on my back. Eventually he threw his arm around me and left it there, holding tightly to my shoulders, leaning forward a little himself. It was strange. My breath was hysterical, I was shaking all over, but in my head were thoughts like: _This room is a little chilly. The laces on my left boot are untied. I wonder if I could still eat dinner after this.  
  
_

I don't know how long I sat there—I only know that my mind was getting very bored with my grieving body. So I sat up, with my nose running and my eyes sore. "Thanks," I said, in a voice that barely sounded like a voice. "Thank you. I'm sorry."  
  


"Don't mention it."  
  


There were plenty of things the four of us still needed to plan out, and soon, but I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. I crawled into the bed, boots and all, and sleep hit me the way a cannonball might, if someone had dropped it directly onto my head from a height.


	16. Day 31 (and 32)

I had another little chat with Amadia today. You know, as you do. I wish I hadn't done, but I didn't have much of a choice. We found the Meistr in her basement again—Ifan had thought to cut roots from the Cloisterwood in the north, so we had everything we needed for the ritual (yes, there's a whole ritual).  
  


She made herself look like my mother again. " _Ahal!_ " she cooed when I approached her, overjoyed, as if I was a newborn she was welcoming into the world. Reminding myself that she wasn't my mother, I stopped at a respectful distance from her, but she had to rush forward and take my face in her hands.  
  


"My sweetest, loveliest heart, _Safasaf._ " She kissed my cheek. "I feel your hurt. I am so sorry for all that has happened."  
  


Well, gods-damn-it, what else do you do when someone with your mother's face holds you and comforts you? You start bawling like a child. For the second time in two days. I hated her for toying with me, but how can I hate my mother?  
  


"Shh, shh," she said, enveloping me in the warmest hug I'd ever felt. "I know how hard it is. But I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. Little weeping willow of mine." And she had the audacity to sob. "I'm a part of you now. I know how you've grown. I know how much power you have."  
  


I wrenched myself away. "Look. If you want to. . .do god-talk, then don't take my mother's face. I can't stick this."  
  


"Listen to me, Safiya," she said.  
  


"Stop it."  
  


"You nee—"  
  


" _Stop it._ "  
  


Then she—my mother—not my mother—seized my chin and forced me to look into her glassy, Source-hollow eyes. And she spoke in Mezdi. " _If you're going to act like a child, I'll treat you like a child. It is_ important _that you_ listen _to me._ "  
  


"OK," I blubbered.  
  


" _Good. Sweetheart, I don't want to hurt you. I only need you to listen._ "  
  


I shook my head. I hated her so much. "Fine. OK."  
  


"I have a spell," she said, falling back into my mother's musical Mezd-coloured Common, "for you to use. When you reach the Well of Ascension."  
  


"I'm not ascending," I said flatly.  
  


Her face trembled—I could feel her in my soul, deciding what approach to take. She decided to keep up her false sweetness. "My darling, it is your decision. I think you are strong, and clever, and sweet enough to be a wonderful Divine, so I'm going to teach you the spell anyway. Because I believe in you. Is that all right, my Safiya?"  
  


It wasn't, but I wasn't going to get to leave until I agreed. "OK."  
  


"You can see the Source out in the world now. But I will give you the means to take it for yourself." She placed her hand against my mouth, her icy fingertips pressing lightly onto my lips. And I felt something ravenous inside me. I can't think of a better way to put it than I felt like a bear, hungry and powerful in my soul. "How do you feel?" she asked.  
  


"What did you do?"  
  


She smiled. "I want you to consume a piece of my Source. It's not difficult for someone as powerful as you."  
  


I didn't even argue. I focused the grasping, craggy feeling of the spell in her direction, and I felt it claw the Source away from her, elastic, like sinew—and it flooded inside that hollow of my soul that had grown so much in the past few weeks. It satisfied nothing. If anything, I wanted more—and that frightened me down to my bones. "What did you _do?_ "  
  


"You feel hunger. Like you're starving. You'll feel it until you take from the Well."  
  


"I don't want it," I said, with rising panic. "Take it back, I don't want it. Take it back."  
  


"Safiya!" she shouted, looking past me, and I whirled around. There was a great Void-beast, lurching for us. And despite everything Amadia had done to me, I defended her as if she was my mother, with the sum of my staff, my magic and my body.  
  


She was flickering in and out of being when I turned back to her, just like you were when I saw you, and I felt a stab of fear. "No, no—"  
  


Amadia fell to her knees, and I grabbed for her, setting her down gently and kneeling beside her.  
  


"What better sign than this to hurry?" she said weakly, and touched my chest. "Do you feel the pull of the Nameless Isle?"  
  


"Yes." I did. It was like a string knotted to my heart. It hurt to turn away from it.  
  


"Good. Listen well to that. And you'll ascend," she said, the threat of cruelty creeping back into her voice, "if you care anything for me. I love you, _safasaf._ "  
  


I stumbled back into consciousness with wet cheeks and a runny nose. The Void-beasts had swarmed the Meistr's basement.  
  


Her spirit, once we'd dispatched the monsters, crossed its arms. "Bloody Voidwoken."  
  


We stared at her, nursing various cuts and breaks.  
  


"Don't stand there and goggle," she snapped. "The Void is getting cocky. That means you're out of time. Go."  
  


"Anything more we can do for you?" asked Ifan, swiping a hand across his bloodied lip.  
  


"Are you headed for Arx?" she shot back, clearly expecting a no. Clearly we were headed for the Isle.  
  


"I am," I said, too eagerly, "that's my home, that's where I'm going." I shifted my weight onto my other foot, winced (probably a sprain) and shifted back.  
  


The impatience that embarrassed me brought a small smile to her face, and she fixed her yellow eyes on mine. "See that they put up a statue of me."  
  


"I—er—"  
  


"Precious, that was what's called a joke."  
  


"Ah."  
  


"Just give them hell from me, Godwoken." She winked. "Now _go._ "  
  


We went. We lingered in the top floor of the house while I healed the worst of our injuries. The beasts, probably attracted by the Meistr's Source fountain, hadn't forced their way into Driftwood proper. (Good thing too, or we'd have a real problem.)  
  


I kept fucking hiccuping—teary, shoulder-shaking hiccups.   
  


"If there are no objections, I don't see why we shouldn't make for the sloop this instant," said the Red Prince.  
  


"I have—" I began, wiping uselessly at my nose. I'd been dreading this. "I think we should go back to that cemetery. Er, Stonegarden, where. . ."  
  


"Ah, yes," said the Red Prince. "Safiya is of the opinion that we ought to risk our lives dispatching a necromancer, that a few wayward souls may be freed."  
  


"It's not far. Handful of miles southeast," I pressed. "You can see for yourselves. Then if you decide you don't want to, we'll just leave."  
  


Ifan was on my side. Sebille took the same view as the Red Prince: we didn't have time to solve every tiny problem on the entire island. But we went in the end, and once Ifan and Sebille had spoken to the spirits, they agreed we should have a word with the necromancer.  
  


He was dressed in black, tall and reedy even by the standards of elves, and had the air of a very, very old man, although he looked fifty or sixty. When we walked into his study, he was at his desk, poring over a thick book.  
  


"Good afternoon," he said, without looking up from his reading. He marked his page and slowly closed the book. "Well. Four Godwoken. No wonder my doors permitted your passage. My name is Ryker, and I'm certain a group as formidable as yourselves did not stop by to admire my furniture."  
  


I had been staring at his desk—a beautiful old mahogany thing, perfectly maintained, with polished drawer-handles. I cleared my throat and looked up, and found Ryker's gaze dark and predatory. Through the window, the graveyard behind him was bleak.  
  


"You own this land, don't you?" I asked. I hadn't meant to. I had no idea where my mouth was planning to take me. "You're the proprietor?"  
  


"I am," he said.  
  


"I h—I have a friend who needs a burial," I rattled. "I wanted to ask your leave."  
  


Ryker raised an eyebrow. "You have it, my sweet. My sympathies for your loss—have a word with my lovely groundskeeper, Farimah, in that event." He surveyed the four of us. "But, and I must beg your pardon, for I know that grief is hard, this does not strike me as a task so insurmountable that it requires four Godwoken. I wonder," he went on, thumbing his chin, "if I might put you up to another."  
  


"What task is that?" asked the Red Prince.  
  


"Let me speak to you first of the reward," said Ryker. "Your power, Godwoken, is in your endless potential—the sink of Source which can never be glutted. I can offer you a veritable feast, a new understanding of might, if only you will perform this trifle of a task."  
  


"'Trifle' is a relative term," said Sebille.  
  


Ryker smiled unpleasantly. "The retrieval of an artifact from a difficult place."  
  


"Why?" I asked. I was still waiting for the first blade to come out, either ours or his.  
  


"I seem to be suffering under an old contract with an estranged King. We shall leave it at that."  
  


"What king?" demanded the Red Prince. I suppose we'd had the same thought about Sadha's betrothed king.  
  


"He who is sovereign of sovereigns," said Ryker. "Not to mention a scribe of iron covenants. If he weren't, I would not be in this bind."  
  


The Red Prince folded his arms. "And this is a contract of such import that you would donate a portion of your own power to us?"  
  


"Not _my_ power, as such. . ." Ryker cast a glance out at the graveyard. All my blood turned to acid.  
  


"I can't," I mumbled, "we can't."  
  


"Wouldn't be right," agreed Ifan.  
  


"Truly?" The Red Prince turned to us. "You would throw out an opportunity for power? Even knowing the road ahead?"  
  


"We can't," I snapped.  
  


He scoffed at me. "You're welcome to leave or partake as you will. Do you want a repeat of Wrecker's Cave?"  
  


I had a vague memory of being trapped alone in a nest of bloated Voidwoken grubs, and then lying on the floor feeling very light, with most of my blood soaking into the ground. "No, but—"  
  


"If you're right," said Sebille, "those souls might prefer oblivion. And they'll be a great help to us."  
  


Ifan took a step back. "I'm not doing this."  
  


"Oh, dear," said Ryker. "Have I caused a bit of an internal dispute?"  
  


"Farimah asked us to kill you," I said.  
  


"Ah." Ryker seemed almost sad to hear it. "You may try. I suppose I can always use more hands to keep the property. . .I may even need a new groundskeeper."  
  


He picked up a crossbow from the foot of his desk and stood. It was a mean fight—of course it would be, with a Sourcerer necromancer—but we were fighting for our souls, and he was fighting for the gain or loss of a few new toys. Still.   
  


The tips of his arrows were covered with something corrosive that bit hard into any flesh it touched. Most of them missed or grazed. One took off my finger, the pointer on my left hand. So when Ryker was dead, while Sebille was poking around the study for valuables, I was scouring the floor for my finger.  
  


I wasn't screaming. I was totally quiet, with my right hand clamped around my left, and my left balled into a fist. You would have thought I just had a nasty cut. That was until Ifan stooped and picked something up off of the ground—then he looked my way.  
  


"This. . .yours?" he asked.  
  


"Give it to me," I snapped.  
  


"Hey, easy," he said, keeping me at a distance with a hand on my shoulder. "It's not going back on. I promise you it's not going back on."  
  


"What do you know? Give it to me, it's _my_ —" I realised it as I said it. "— _finger,_ good fucking Gods."  
  


"Look, look, look," said Ifan, trying to head off my frenzy at the pass, "Saf, look at me."  
  


I did. Green.  
  


"You can try if you want to." Slowly he opened my palm and placed the finger in it. It was I won't write it it didn't look good. It didn't look good and I felt no life from it. Something necrotic on the bolts of Ryker's crossbow. I drew back to fling it away, but Ifan caught my hand, and eased it out of my grasp. "We'll bury it somewhere, OK?"  
  


I brought my temperature down—to slow my heart rate, and slow the blood. It was a clean break, thank the stars, but it was all gone, up to the knuckle. I would have liked at least one joint's worth of a stump, but no. I closed the blood vessels and the flesh over it—actually it was one of the easier things I've done. But it felt like closing a door.  
  


Farimah found me once we'd left the estate. She clasped my hands—ran her thumb over the place where my finger had been, minutes ago. She unhooked something from around her neck and laid it in my hand, a small, gleaming bloodstone on a silver chain.  
  


"What's happened to the spirits?" I asked.  
  


"Free," she said.  
  


I nodded. She nodded back at me. Back in Driftwood, we bought provisions—in bulk, great sacks of flour; oil and water; whatever we could find that was edible and wouldn't rot. You were   
  


still in the square—I mean I know your spirit was gone. But your body was loitering. And I  
  


took Sebille up on her offer. In Ryker's study we found a bottle of a potent, fast-acting poison. "I only need to nick her in passing, darling, it'll be the quickest end I've ever given someone," she promised. And she did exactly that. I was terrified you were going to seize up, or it was going to hurt you, but it was as quick as she said. It was quick. It was quick.   
  


(One Magister tried to get in my way—the same one whose head I'd bashed with my nose. Or who had bashed my nose in with his head. I think he suspected that I knew you at that point, but he didn't take my bribe this time, only told me to hurry up and leave town.)   
  


I had wanted to take you back to Stonegarden, but then I thought you wouldn't want to be all alone in a town you had nothing to do with, and I said I was taking you north to the elven camp.  
  


"There's no getting there before nightfall," said Ifan.  
  


"We have made every preparation to the end of leaving Reaper's Coast _tonight,_ " the Red Prince put in.  
  


I exhaled. I could see the gears turning in his head: what could he say to get us on the ship as quickly as possible?  
  


"You've taken us on a long detour," he went on. "I th—"  
  


"So say that I killed you," I said, feeling cold, "and I left—no, here. Say that someone had killed Sadha."  
  


"I warn you—"  
  


"And there was no cremation, and there were no prayers. They'd left her to the vultures the way they do rebellious slaves." I hefted you up higher in my arms. My left hand was still clumsy. "I'm not talking about this. Just point me north and then all of you have a grand old time becoming Divine. Good luck. Enjoy yourselves."   
  


The Red Prince caught me roughly by my shoulder, and with you in my arms I nearly fell and broke my nose all over again. "You don't mean," he hissed, "to carry a corpse all those miles north through the forest. You are mad, and you mean to die."  
  


I jerked my shoulder away and started walking. I knew where the Meistr's house was, and I knew which way the forest was from there, and my arms were already tiring. The sounds of people got quieter the farther away from the town I walked, and instead I heard the rustling of grass and the din of crickets.  
  


The sky was just starting to darken by the time I heard footsteps. I turned around and watched for whoever was coming. It wasn't like I was going to put up a worthwhile fight.  
  


"I find you very nearly insufferable," said the Red Prince, once he was near. "Let us have this over with."  
  


I grinned at him. "Ifan and Sebille haven't left?"  
  


"They are at the shore for the time being, speaking with that she-demon, and making certain that the Lady Vengeance is prepared to leave the very _instant_ we return. If you've cost me my chance at Divinity, Safiya, I won't be held responsible for what happens."  
  


"Thank you," I told him, "for this."  
  


"She has chosen to remain unmoved by my threat."  
  


I smiled. He never knows what to make of a simple 'thank you'. "We'll make good time," I promised.  
  


"Not with you struggling for every step."  
  


"Th—" I breathed out shakily. "Will you hold her, please?"  
  


He hesitated. "I-I suppose I've made my bed, have I?"   
  


"Be gentle."  
  


Slowly he bent and took you out of my arms, and to see him, I would have thought you were as light as air.  
  


We navigated the forest much faster after that, without me stumbling over every little root and pile. We were quiet, and the sounds of crickets and frogs were overwhelming.  
  


"As much as I resent saying so," began the Red Prince, as the sky was beginning to turn purple, "I find this. . .disquieting."  
  


"Don't think of it that way," I said. "I—OK. Carrying a strange d—person through the forest is awkward, fair enough. But I'll help you know her a bit better. Her, her full name is Ulara Waewenys. She was an actress. Er—have you read that horrible play about the man who's struck blind by lightning, and then his wife robs him blind, and he gets struck _again,_ and—"  
  


" _The Folly of Trust._ Not only have I read it, I have had the distinct displeasure of seeing it on the stage."  
  


"Right!" I laughed. "So she was the wife, in a huge production in Arx last season. Everyone came for her. She was just such an incredible bitch—but you still believed in her, you know? As a real person. It made that idiot play worth seeing."  
  


"No mean feat."  
  


"No," I agreed. "What else. . .her favorite plant is lavender. She'd tie up sprigs of it and dry them out and press them onto an envelope with a wax seal. And then she'd pay a courier to deliver the letter to me, even though we lived together most of the time."  
  


"Only most of the time?"  
  


"Unless she was touring. Er, you can't tell now, but. . .she had this long brown hair—chestnut—that was sort of like her pride and joy, and she'd always wear it down unless she was playing a part, or she was baking. . .she couldn't bake even a little bit, but that didn't stop her. And I always had to taste whatever she made, and she'd look at me, and I'd say it was good, and then we'd burst out laughing because we both knew it was shite." I giggled at the memory, and then sobbed. "Sorry. I hope that helps a bit."  
  


He looked into your face, cautiously, as if he was worried you might look back. "I fancy that it does, strangely enough."  
  


We got to the camp. They lent me some cutters and I cut the wire from your lips (it left little bruises where the holes had been)—then they dressed you in robes of their own. With your black eyes closed, you looked almost like yourself again. I let Saheila take a piece of you before we put you to the pyre—memories, things I might not have known or things I forgot. I hope that's OK. The fire burned through the night and I stayed up to watch it.  
  


"You can get some sleep if you like," I told the Red Prince. "This takes hours."  
  


"I didn't think cremation was the Elvish custom," he said.  
  


I shook my head. "It isn't. Ula doesn't like small spaces. Will you—er—yeah. Like I said. Maybe get a bit of rest."  
  


He looked sidelong at me. I saw the glow of his eyes in the blinding firelight. "Will I—?"  
  


"Doesn't matter. I've made you do me so many favours."  
  


"What, then, is one more?"  
  


"Will you say a prayer? I know we're on strange terms with the gods right now. Will you—say a prayer?" Suddenly I understood that I was watching you go up in flames, and my lips wobbled. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop whatever animal shriek was going to come out. Then came a volley of little sobs. I crumpled into his side.  
  


He did say a prayer—a short one in the lizard tongue. Saheila, as the Scion, gave a whole Elvish sermon. Before I knew it, it was morning, and we set off with the sunrise. I had the idea of redoing my braid, and tying it off with the red bit of cloth you'd given me, but my left hand was useless, kept grabbing at air where I expected my missing finger to be. I left my hair loose, thinking of your hands running through it, and stuffed the cloth piece back into a pocket of my robe.  
  


The ship—the Lady Vengeance—hadn't left without us, but they raised the anchor, as promised, the second we were on board. Malady gave me an earful, but I didn't care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact i actually wanted to title this fic "The Folly of Trust" but the corn levels were off the charts


	17. Day 39

The Nameless Isle is a long way off. In the meantime, the four of us are roving the decks, starved for Source and with an angry compass in our chests pulling us toward the island. I'm getting used to the lack of a finger—I don't drop things so often, but I still can't keep a decent hold on my staff. Sebille and I spar on the top deck, and she barely has to strike my left side or the stupid thing flies out of my grip. Sometimes I still wake up, see my hands and panic, but that's getting less, too.  
  


I'm so happy you had a decent funeral. I couldn't have left you behind and lived with myself. This doesn't make what they did to you all right, but I hope you can rest. And I'll kill Alexandar when we find him. Or Ifan will. Do you think I could piece your soul back together if I was Divine? I think I might be able to. The last of your existence can't have disappeared in the fire—you, so big and bright you half-blinded anyone who came near. There's no way.  
  


Tonight I was out on the top deck after sunset, listening to the lashing of the waves against our hull. The Red Prince was nearby, looking out over the water. He can spend hours that way. I always wonder what he's thinking of.  
  


Being on the open sea is different than being in the rain. I don't feel overwhelmed, I feel capable. I can cast with more precision, and more power. I pulled a string of sparkling droplets out of the water below, and danced them around me. Then the ship jarred—Malady was guiding us between two narrow-set islets, and we must have hit a reef, or a bit of rock—and in my suprise I let all my droplets fall out of the air and spatter onto the deck. The shudder of the ship seemed to have broken the Red Prince's concentration, as well, so I saw my chance. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"  
  


He turned to me. "I am here because I want silence. Why, I ask you, should one moment of reprieve be such a dear request?"  
  


"All right. Don't let me get in your way," I said, and got to my feet. I poked my tongue into the inside of my cheek as I came to stand beside him, trusting that he'd shoo me away if I was imposing.  
  


"What have you to gain from trying my patience?" he asked, through clenched teeth.  
  


"I'll go, if you want me to," I said. "I just wanted to ask you how you were doing. It looks to me like you're up here at all hours, making yourself miserable."  
  


He chuffed, but there was no humour in it. "'Making myself'. I needn't expend the slightest effort to that end. I suspect that none of us do."  
  


"What's on your mind, then? Source hunger? Divinity? Something else?" (By which I meant Sadha, and he knew I meant Sadha, but I didn't want to draw it out.)  
  


"Nothing you ought to concern yourself with," he said tersely.   
  


I grinned. "I'll make out what I ou—"  
  


"Safiya," he said, in a voice as firm as it was strained, "I bridle my temper out of regard for the both of us. Show me a little mercy and leave."  
  


"Sure," I said, pretending I wasn't at all shaken. "I think I'll play a round of cards with the others. You can join us if you like."  
  


I'd found a deck of cards in the hold a few days before, but I wanted to play Four Heads, so I'd been scrounging up some "coins" as well, for currency, worthless bits of bronze and iron lying around the ship. One rusted rivet. We'd make do. Ifan and Sebille were chatting in the sleeping quarters, but they didn't mind a game.   
  


I think Four Heads was too long to start with. An hour or two in, Sebille 'lost', which meant we had to stop playing, because you're technically meant to play in threes. Well—had to—it was more like she saved us. It was hard to carry on a conversation, anyway, because if we hit on anything deeper than the weather or the seasickness, we risked running into one of the many, many iceberg topics we couldn't bring up if we didn't want a fight, or a lot of grief. So when we were finished, I went up to the top deck again for a little air, and to pick up my books. (They were Dallis' books. They're mine now.)  
  


"Hey," I said softly as I piled the books into my arms. The Red Prince didn't turn around. "Sorry. I didn't mean to push you earlier."  
  


Nothing.  
  


"It's going to be too dark to see the water, soon," I murmured, half to myself, and made for the cabin.   
  


"You have the right of it," he said finally. I stopped. "This is a colossal waste of time. Shall we take to something more invigorating?"  
  


"And what's that?" I asked.  
  


"Spar with me. I have yet to see you in action."  
  


I bit my lip. "You should have asked me when I still had all ten fingers. I'm hardly any good now—keep dropping the bloody thing."  
  


"Bring to bear whatever you can. My expectations are not high."  
  


"You could stand to ask nicely, _emri._ "  
  


He shot me a look and went into the hold to get his two-hander. Having come back, he took a fighter's stance, with his sword angled toward me. I crossed his blade with my staff, heart already thundering, and he rushed toward me. I could blame my finger, but the fact is I could have had fifty fingers and I still wouldn't have been any match for him, not in speed or strength or grace. The one little gift I had was that all those matches against Sebille and her daggers had sharpened my reflexes, and a greatsword is slower by far than a dagger, so I could see a few of his blows coming. Some of them I let slide off the length of my staff, and others I had planned badly, so that his sword's sharp edge was buried in my staff and it came down to the strongest arm. He'd give me the same smug smile each time, and each time, obviously, I'd end up on the floor.  
  


"How," he asked, helping me up for the so-manyeth time, "do you think to damage me if you'll do nothing but guard?"  
  


I was panting by this point, and so flushed I felt like my face was radiating heat. "If I'm not guarding when I spar with Sebille, she'll turn me into a sieve."  
  


"You will have noticed that I am not Sebille. So adapt."  
  


"I don't know how," I said honestly.   
  


The Red Prince set down his sword. "To begin with, don't hold it so near the centre. It's not a rudder. Here," he said, coming to stand behind me. He took my right hand and closed it around the staff, nearly at the end. Then my left, about a quarter down the length. "Think of it as an uncommonly blunt, heavy sword. How does that change your approach?"  
  


I took a few exploratory swings as he took up his own sword again. Suddenly I was much slower, and much less secure—he knocked the staff out of my hands time and again, and I picked it up every time, and every time he floored me I stood up again, and the more exhausted I got, the fiercer I was. I made hard, reckless blows, and he kept redirecting them, or knocking the bloody staff out of my hands, or knocking me to the bloody floor, and I kept standing up, and I hit harder, and he stopped smiling. I thought to swing the staff over my head, building up momentum, and brought it down as hard as I could. This worked once, and only once—I smashed three of his fingers and broke one. I didn't know that at the time, but I did hear a crack. "Well done," he said grimly, and drew back while I was goggling, and we crossed weapons again, this time so hard that I saw a chip of wood from my staff go flying.  
  


"You're hurt," I said, between breaths.   
  


"Hardly," he said, and that was all. We kept on. I didn't get another blow in after that, but it struck me how much control he had over his body and his blade: he could make the most vicious move and slow it down at the last moment to be feather-light. I didn't take so much as a bruise.   
  


Finally we were done, and by 'done', I mean he was slightly winded and I was at death's door. I walked a few slow laps around the deck, getting my breath back, and then went back to my corner and slumped against the siderail. My head rested on a hard coil of rope. The Red Prince sat beside me. The ship hit a frothy wave and a spray of cool, salt water drifted over us.  
  


"Give me your hand," I said. He did. "I'm sorry. I got a bit too excited, maybe. Rhalic's rotted teeth—this is broken, isn't it?" I moved his ring finger and he breathed in sharply. "Sorry. I don't mean to hurt you."  
  


"I know," he said simply.   
  


"We're just not having any luck when it comes to our fingers, are we?" I smiled. My eyes were closed; I was checking for any smaller breaks or tears. None—just the ring finger.  
  


"Pray that mine stays attached to its host. I am grown fond of it."  
  


"I was fond of mine." I held his hand in both of mine and focused on the expanse of the sea around us. "So how are you?"  
  


"I beg your pardon?"  
  


"It's the dead of night. The others are asleep; it's only me." I didn't need to keep my eyes closed, strictly speaking, but I did anyway. "It might ease your mind a bit just to talk."  
  


"You want to lift the worries from my mind. Frankly, Safiya, you may count yourself among them."  
  


I opened my eyes. "What? Why me?"  
  


He sighed. "My path was so simple. Even my arrest represented nothing more than a brief twist in an otherwise orderly trail."  
  


"Nothing's different," I said, frantic for no reason. "Nothing's different. You're still going to find Sadha, and become the Emperor."  
  


"So many—fresh notions, and suggestions, colouring my mind." He smiled tiredly at me. "And so many of them whispering with your voice."  
  


"Tell me," I began—then took a deep breath and started over in a more even tone. "Tell me about Zorl-Stissa. What was she like, the last time?"  
  


"Hm. I wish she was not so grasping. So desperate. It gave her something repugnant, Lady par—" He stopped himself. "I suppose I can hardly beg the Lady's pardon in this."  
  


"It's only natural not to want to die. And. . .she's not just going to die—she's going to stop existing."  
  


"Natural for mortal beings, perhaps. I think the least we can expect of the gods is to go with grace."  
  


"But you'll save her, if you can, won't you?" I asked. "Bend your finger?"  
  


He tried, but it wouldn't bend. "I must disappoint," he said, like he was chastising the finger for being so disagreeable.  
  


"OK. Come here. So many little bones, by the Void. If I can't figure this out, we'll have to splint it and search Dallis' library in the morning."  
  


The Red Prince nodded and laid his hand in mine again. "I continue to weigh my options. Will I grant her the life she could not, herself, keep hold of? Will I harbour such an overbearing thing in my soul for all time?"  
  


My mouth fell open. "But—she's Zorl-Stissa! Your goddess! Your—" and I clamped my mouth shut again, a bear trap. Amadia stirred in the back of my mind.  
  


"You cannot possibly feel so strongly about a stranger god. I must conclude that you're projecting your own Godwoken god-woes onto me." His hand tensed in mine, just a bit, as he went on. "Unfortunately, this is _my_ scheduled moment of catharsis, and I take a dim view of interruptions."  
  


He was waiting for me to look up—which I did, utterly baffled and maybe a bit stung, until I caught the spark in his eye that said 'I am absolutely fucking with you'. I laughed, helplessly, and so did he—a rare honest laugh.  
  


"Speak, then," he said at last.  
  


"No, I—it was nothing I was thinking of—I was just surprised."  
  


"My view is coloured by nothing more than pragmatism. Are you so fond of your Amadia?"  
  


I nearly bit a trench into my bottom lip before I had the courage to speak. "She pretends she's my mother, now. She takes her face, and she uses her voice. It," I tried to wring the tremor out of my voice, "makes it hard to know. I don't know what I think anymore."  
  


"She takes the guise of a loved one, and all the while she pours her own power-seeking pestilence into your ear. Loathsome. And. . .vastly cunning, if you'll allow my saying so."  
  


"I can't control what you say or don't say."  
  


"I pray sweet Zorl-Stissa does not overhear the trick, or else that she has a shred of honour left to her and refuses to put it to use." He looked out at the sea, glittering with moonlight, and considered the possibility.  
  


"Would she break you that way?"  
  


"I am indomitable, of course," he said, waited a moment, and added, quieter: "I would prefer not to find out."  
  


"Funny that. . .we're talking about this as a punishment, when. . .it's meant to be this incredible honour."  
  


"The gods ought to make better companions of themselves if they want our fealty."  
  


I sighed a long sigh. "Er, I don't want to risk healing it crooked. I think we should bind it for the night. Does it hurt very much?"  
  


"It is. . .far from pleasant. I expect it shall be farther still, when you take away that ice sculpture you pass off as a hand."  
  


"Oh! I sat with the S—I sat with sir Gareth the other day. He showed me a cooling charm. Here." I shut my eyes tightly and drew some of the energy from the sea, and compressed it into a small, dense piece I could hold in my hand, and—it's hard to explain—made it set root in his skin. "Look," I said, proud despite myself. Veins of ice-blue magic were settling in the divots between his scales. "Is it too cold?"  
  


"No," he said.  
  


"Sorry I broke your finger."  
  


"What's done is done."  
  


I opened my hands—obviously I wasn't doing any more healing tonight. But he neglected to take back his hand. I felt foggy and tired; my head seemed to droop of its own accord, and settled in the crook of the Red Prince's shoulder. "Can I ask you a question?" I mumbled, really only half-aware of myself.  
  


"You may ask me another."  
  


"Did—had you, the first—er. . .was F—" I swallowed. "Were you ev—. . .Lucian's arse."  
  


"How I resent your waffling."  
  


I frowned and ran my fingers over the back of his hand.  
  


"Why ask leave for a question you're unable to pose?" he muttered, and I felt his voice rumble in his chest.  
  


"Had you ever—was it—had you ever—"  
  


"Had I _what?_ "  
  


" _Killed_ anyone, before Fort Joy?" I snapped.   
  


"Ah."  
  


"Sorry."  
  


"Dispense with your apologies, for gods' sakes." He was quiet for a while. I played with his thumb, bending and unbending it. "That is a harder question than I anticipated."  
  


"You don't have to answer it," I said quickly.  
  


"I recall telling you that my calm in the thick of battle is a hard-won art." He cleared his throat. "That much is true. If. . .if one is to make a warrior of a young prince, theory alone will never do. One must put a blade in his hand."  
  


"Mm." I took his injured hand in both of mine again, trying to be as much comfort as I could without hurting the broken ring finger.  
  


"And. . .one teaches the young prince to spar, and he becomes adept. One pits him against training dolls and hanging carcasses, and he is formidable. But one comes to the realisation that, if the young prince is to learn to fight for his _life_ , then he must _fight_ for his life. And his opponent must also fight for _her_ life.   
  


"But the young prince is too valuable to send afield, so another solution must be reached. One has slaves enough at one's disposal, of course, being of the House of War. One conveys them into the Forbidden City, fodder for the young prince to cut his teeth on. Easy targets, at first—children, the enfeebled. Some of them survive long enough for treatment, once the first blood is drawn. Others do not. They are of no consequence.  
  


"The opponents continue to come. And the prince becomes inured to them, after a very long while. He looks through them. He becomes less a brute than a strategist. And one has accomplished one's goal, admirably, at the cost of, say, one hundred and forty-seven lives over four hundred and eighty-one battles. One has made a dauntless general of a weak-hearted prince."  
  


" _Emri,_ " I said gently, and felt a stab of guilt knowing what the word meant. I wished I had his name.  
  


He leaned into me, heavily, as if he couldn't support his own weight. "It is true," he said, in a faraway voice, "that Zorl-Stissa put the red of the Warrior Sun in my skin. But I was no born conqueror."  
  


Then neither of us said anything. At some point we must have gone back to quarters, because I woke up in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> emo backstory time!! i was sweating so hard to finish and post this thing before the graphic novel comes out because i already had mans name and backstory set down and i didn't want to be contradicted lol


	18. Day 45

We landed on the Nameless Isle today. What struck me first was the heat: the part of the island where Malady had moored us was dry and cracked with it, and the sun was merciless. I thought we might have ended up far east, but honestly I have no clue where we are on a map. (Well, we're not on any map. That's sort of the point, isn't it.)  
  


The plants were strange, clustered thickly around what looked like the ruins of a stone building. A shrine. Corpses were strewn about—ones that hadn't begun to decay yet, two Magisters and a handful of people in dark robes. Ifan, kneeling next to one of them, said they had the sigil of the Black Ring.   
  


When I came near, the bloodstone necklace Farimah had given me became cold enough to burn, and it lifted from my chest as if it meant to escape. Every time we come near a group of Black Ring, the same thing happens—it reacts to them, or something they're doing. And we know to stay away if we don't want a fight.   
  


The other thing is that the Source hunger is fucking overwhelming. I can feel the Well calling to me, as if the gods have their hands in my ribs and they're tugging me toward them from the inside. I still have no idea how we're going to do this. The hunger tells us exactly where we need to go; an enormous building sunk into the rock face of a mountain, constructed in the same strange, angular way as a lot of the ruins here—but the doors are barred to us. There's some sort of puzzle in the stone courtyard. . .we're meant to match each god either to the sun or the moon, and none of us are devout enough for this nonsense. OK, Zorl-Stissa and the sun, Tir-Cendelius and the moon, but how in the Void are we meant to know where the imp goddess' preference lies? We might have wasted a few hours trying every possible combination until the doors opened, but we had other things to do on the Isle. We crept north, avoiding the Black Ring wherever possible, making note of any shrines we passed. We found one, dedicated to Rhalic, also littered with corpses—Ifan knelt and had a word with his god, who is not my god, and later, we came upon a sprawling elven temple, nested in an enormous tree, dedicated to Sebille's god, who is not my god. We decided to make camp, not in the temple, but in a clearing nearby.   
  


"You need to come with me," Sebille told Ifan almost as soon as we'd settled, and her pained smile was as irresistible as her grip on his wrist. "We'll be back."  
  


"Be careful!" I called. I was a fair one to talk. She didn't bother responding. "What d'you suppose that's about?" I asked the Red Prince.  
  


He glanced at me, then turned his attention back to the firepit we'd made of stray stones. Idly he flourished his hand, deciding whether or not to set a fire. He decided against it. "What word has she for his ears and not ours?"  
  


"I dunno. I'm sure there're loads of things."  
  


"Curious, isn't it? How partitioned we are."  
  


"I don't think it's that curious," I said, digging the last bit of food I had from the elven camp (strips of meat, spiced and dried, and folded into a leaf for safekeeping) out of my pack. "Considering who you are, and who she is."  
  


"You realise what that means for you."  
  


"What," I said, through a mouthful of leathery venison.  
  


"You're on my side of the fracture."  
  


I frowned. "No, I'm not."  
  


He shrugged, _if you say so._ "If I have been anything less than a pariah in this company of four, then that has been your doing."  
  


"Is that a. . .'thank you', or an accusation?"  
  


"Your mystery to solve."  
  


Irritated, I changed the subject. "I hope Ifan and Sebille are all right."  
  


"I should think they can fend for themselves."  
  


"You aren't worried? With the Black Ring and the Voidwoken about? Oh, I should have—" I clutched the bloodstone pendant. Sebille should have had it in case any Black Ring were patrolling.  
  


They came back in one piece, though, Ifan trying to shoot me a smile, but he couldn't seem to shake the frown lines between his eyebrows. "We'll draw up a plan," he declared. "Maybe we don't have the lay of the land just yet, but there's no more time." He sat down and took a deep breath. "One way or another, this all ends when we step inside that great temple. Right?"  
  


"Right," I said.  
  


"Then that's the last thing we do here. That's _not_ to say we drag our feet. So: Sebille has. . ."  
  


". . .a dear old friend I'd like to track down, as you know," Sebille finished for him.  
  


"That's one. And—" Ifan pointed at the Red Prince. "Your, er—"  
  


"Yes," said the Prince curtly.  
  


Ifan nodded. "Fine. Two search jobs. Three search jobs," he amended. "I'm thinking Alexandar will find us if we don't find him first. Three search jobs, and we need a way into that temple, and—we need to see what we're going to do about Divinity. Five items. What order do we tackle them in?"  
  


"Just the one you've given," said the Red Prince. "We oughtn't to make the final decision while our heads are still clouded with other concerns."  
  


"I think we should find our way into the temple first," I hesitated. "That way, er, if we run out of time while we're doing something else, we can hurry there."  
  


"We've been trying to do exactly that, haven't we?" said Sebille. "If anything, one of these little headhunting trips might turn up the key."  
  


"All right, where do we hunt first?" asked Ifan. "We've made a pretty fair path from the shore to the northeast, far as I can tell, but we haven't hit the southern tip."  
  


"We should look inside the temple to Tir-Cendelius," said Sebille. "It's nearby anyway. Then, to the south."  
  


"OK. We check the elven temple, then we go south, and we find whoever we find. Then if we haven't found the way into the big temple, we look for that next. _Then_ we make the final call."  
  


"Fine," I bit into my cheek, "but can we at least talk about it now? Without making any decisions, just—to have all the cards on the table?"  
  


Ifan sighed. "Me, I think we're better off without a Divine."  
  


"Patently unwise," said the Red Prince immediately, "even if we had the option."  
  


"See," replied Ifan, as if he'd been expecting exactly that response, "you don't want a discussion. You want a brawl you can win—and I don't like what you have in mind, so push comes to shove—"  
  


"Very well," the Red Prince cut him off. "You've made your point."  
  


"Hope so. Just hear us out."  
  


"Well," said Sebille cheerily, "I nominate myself, of course."  
  


"Right. Saf?"  
  


"I, er," I was the one who brought it up, and still I was sitting there sweaty-necked and with my heart hammering. "Whatever we decide on, I'll support. I. . ." I dug my nails into my palms. "Actually, I've thought about this, and I think you and Sebille would be good for Rivellon. I—I mean, it'd have to be either or, but you know."  
  


"Ah," said the Red Prince.  
  


I shot him a look. He'd known how I feel for weeks—and he was going to act offended now?  
  


"I'm flattered, darling," Sebille smiled at me.  
  


"I'm not going to do it, for the record," said Ifan uneasily. "You pick me, I'll divide the Source over all Rivellon, if I can."  
  


"Maybe," I said, "we should think of this in terms of what we want, not who we want to do it. If all we wanted was to stop the Void from invading, we could just let Alexandar ascend."  
  


"Which isn't happening," said Ifan firmly.  
  


"Which isn't happening," I agreed. "So we must want more than just. . .for the world not to end."  
  


Sebille sat back. "I want a homeland for the elves—and maybe to mete out a little justice against those who poisoned the forests and slaughtered their inhabitants. _And_ against those who descended like carrion birds upon the survivors," she added, glaring down the Red Prince as if her gaze could bore through his skull.  
  


"'Bille—" Ifan began, suddenly hoarse, but she put her hand on his arm and he stopped himself.  
  


"I can agree with that," I said, tentatively.  
  


The Red Prince scoffed. "What do you mean to do? Make war on the Empire?"  
  


"If necessary," said Sebille.  
  


"In order to dissolve it?"  
  


"In order to free every man, woman and child your people have shackled. If that means a little collateral damage dealt to your golden palaces, I'll live with the guilt."  
  


"You are thoroughly blinding yourself if you truly think the casualties will begin and end with our 'golden palaces'. Who do you suppose will be the front line of the Empire? It will be those it considers expendable. It will push weapons into the hands of every knock-kneed, bloody-lipped boy, and every stooping, shambling old man. _They_ will be the cost of your vanity war. Not I."  
  


Sebille paused. "The lizard goddess must be recoiling to hear her crown prince speak that way."  
  


"No war is fought without cost. That is my sole and solitary point. But I confess that your haphazard bloodthirst does not fill me with enthusiasm for the reign of Divine Sebille."  
  


"And I'm not exactly raring to put a slaver prince on his second throne. Speaking of bloodthirst."  
  


"Look," said Ifan, "we're not going to solve this tonight. Now we know where we all stand, and that's enough for now. Let's get a bit of rest. Better use of our time."  
  


So we did. We're taking it in shifts. I don't know how well I'm going to sleep, choking on insects in this airless pit, and with any number of things around that could kill us. But I should try anyway, or tomorrow will be worse.


	19. Day 46

We killed Alexandar. For good this time. His spirit came into view slowly, as if it hated to be seen by us. He watched us with folded arms. "Know what you have wrought, Godwoken," he sighed. "It is only a matter of time now until the Void claims us."  
  


"How do we get inside that temple?" Ifan demanded.  
  


"Temple?" repeated Alexandar, raising a spectral eyebrow. "It is no temple. It is the Academy, where Godwoken studied their art, once. I weep for Rivellon if this is the standard of the next Divine."  
  


Ifan came very close, and even being a ghost, even knowing Ifan couldn't hurt him, Alexandar stepped back. "Bugger what it is, we need in. And if you don't want to see the world end, then you'll _help_ us."  
  


Alexandar held Ifan's gaze for all of two seconds—when he looked away, it was an admission of defeat. So he gave us the answer. Sebille checked his body for valuables as he spoke, and he didn't say a word, only kept explaining the code with his voice more and more resentful. "After that, Godwoken," he concluded, "you'll have to rely on your own strength. . .and on whatever you can scavenge from my mortal remains, apparently."  
  


Sebille shot him a smile and sank her teeth into his white, soft cheek—that of his corpse. Alexandar winced.  
  


"Interesting," she remarked, wiping her mouth. "I should have done that from the beginning." She tore the cowl from his robe, rubbing the silk lining between her bloodied fingers. Alexandar watched her, his mouth becoming a thin, prim line of distaste.  
  


"Tell me something else, your _excellency,_ " Ifan spat. "Tell me _why_ —the elves—"  
  


"Ah, the Deathfog bombs," said Alexandar, and considered him. "According to my father, there was no one better for the job. He trusted you."  
  


"Trusted me."  
  


"You were a good soldier, Ifan," said Alexandar, suddenly diplomatic—gentle, almost. "You were following orders."  
  


Ifan seemed to deflate. He shook his head. "I hope they leave your carcass to the wolves, lad. We're done here."  
  


I made a sound—I meant to say 'wait', but my mind wasn't all there, so I just said something like 'eh'. Alexander turned to me. "More complaints?" He smiled bitterly to himself. "You might as well make them known now."  
  


"I want to know about Fort Joy," I said, when I could trust my voice again. "Why is the Divine Order doing this?"  
  


Alexander crossed his arms. "In my capacity as the Bishop, I can tell you that the measures we took were all taken in order to protect the world from the Sourcerer menace."  
  


"But you turn people into Silent Monks," I said, noticing the trembling that had taken over my entire body. "And then you put _screws_ into those Silent Monks, or bolts, so they can't walk upright. Why?"  
  


"Our methods may be harsh. Some will never understand, or if they understand, they will never forgive. I have accepted that. I am—was—prepared to do anything for the sake of Rivellon."  
  


It was the exact sort of weaselly half-answer you'd expect from a self-righteous young man—especially one who had such big shoes to fill. I said nothing.  
  


Alexandar narrowed his eyes, trying to place me. "I have you to thank for my life, don't I? When I was held hostage by the Seekers on that damnable ship."  
  


I nodded.  
  


"Well, thank you. I wish you hadn't undone your hard work."  
  


For my part, I was glad I had. "I think we should go," I said, and we went.  
  


As we neared the southern tip of the island, the air changed; where it had been thick, damp, strangling, now it was dry and carried the taste of ashes. The ground became colourless and cracked again, the way it was on the coast where we'd first landed, and a great stone structure loomed in the distance. (The temple of Zorl-Stissa, I found out later. I could have guessed. There's nothing in this fucking snakepit but the gods and their temples.)  
  


Sebille has the habit of walking beside you, but lagging behind just by a step or two, so she's just in your blind spot. But even if she was only a vague shape in the corner of my vision, I could feel how tense she was—not tense the way I might get tense, but tense the way a predator is before she strikes, with her singular, murderous gaze trained on something in the distance.   
  


She grabbed me around the wrist, told Ifan to 'stay here, we'll be back' and took off through the ruins, dragging me behind her.  
  


"The Master is here," she whispered, once she thought we were far enough away. "There's something you have to do for me."  
  


"What?" I asked, between breaths. She brought her hand to the scar on her cheek and my heart forgot how to beat for a moment. "Sebille—"  
  


"That sack of filth is going to sing my scar-song, and—"  
  


"But—Ifan!" I burst out. "You've told it to him! Haven't you?"  
  


She took my hand in hers, the left one with its missing finger, and held it tightly, somewhere between crushing and caressing. "I wouldn't do this if I didn't absolutely have to, but I can't take chances."  
  


I shook my head, moving my mouth uselessly. "Do you trust me?" I managed at last.  
  


"I don't have a choice. Ifan—if his voice so much as cracks, dearest, I'm lost for ever. Don't make me regret this."  
  


"But I can't!" I insisted. I didn't know how to tell her how bad an idea this was.   
  


She took a breath. "I put your girl out of her misery. Without me, the Order would still have her body for a slave. You can take my word for it what a favour I've done you. _Don't_ snivel, Safiya. One good turn deserves another, don't you think?"  
  


"I can't," I said, snivelling. But she was already singing. Her voice was like her: soft, sharp, apprehensive.  
  


"Sing it to me," she said, when she was done.  
  


I shook my head.  
  


She gripped my hand harder, crushing now. " _Sing it to me._ "  
  


I gripped her hand back, just as tightly. I took a halting breath and sang the phrase. Her hand went slack and fell out of mine, and I thought of you, I thought Monk, and I screamed her name. Sebille looked into my eyes, brown eyes, russet, like yours, and there was nothing there. It might have been a few minutes—it might have been hours before she turned her head and dusted herself off, breathing a sigh of relief.  
  


"That'll do, sweetest," she said. "Be ready when I signal you."  
  


"OK," I said, but I couldn't take my eyes off her—my mind still needed to know that it was her, and she was there.   
  


She caught me staring and winked at me. "We'll make it a reunion to remember."  
  


"All r—" My voice broke. I swallowed. "All right."  
  


Ifan and the Red Prince had laid out the last of the dried food on a bit of cloth when we came back. Sebille didn't touch it.   
  


"Eat something," Ifan suggested.   
  


She shook her head. "After."  
  


Ifan frowned and cast a glance toward the great stone building, then looked back at Sebille. She nodded. Her face was a mask, but her eyes were blazing with fury and excitement and fear.  
  


"Let's do it, then," he said, and folded the bits of meat and fruit back into their square of linen and stashed it away.  
  


"Ah—have we the scent of this Master at last?" asked the Red Prince.  
  


Sebille only smiled at him in her carnivorous way.   
  


As we climbed the temple steps, there was the sound of humming, first faint, and then louder. The Master, when we found him, was as you'd expect: an ominous-looking lizard with a noble bearing and a manipulative streak. Sebille had all his attention, although he glanced once, with interest, at the Red Prince.   
  


I didn't hear a word either of them said, my heart was hammering in my ears. I was worried at first that I'd missed my signal, that I was too late, because Sebille swayed along with the Master's every move, as if she was hexed. But then he opened his mouth to sing—I realised the song she'd taught me was a bit different than that of the Master, a harmony. Sebille flashed us a sign with her hand. Ifan caught my eye and we sang the scar-song together, neither of us outstanding, but enough between the two of us to drown out the voice of the Master. He stared, flabbergasted, and in the moment of the spell's breaking, before he could think to react, Sebille drew back her needle and skewered it through his throat, and left it there. The Master tried to speak, but all he managed was a gurgle and a torrent of blood that oozed out between his sharp teeth.  
  


I grinned despite myself. She'd silenced him. The fight was hard—we found out firsthand where Sebille had gotten her skill with a blade—but she fought as if she'd already won. When he was on the ground, lifeless, she wrenched her needle from his neck, opened his chest with one of her daggers, and cut out his heart. His spirit was looking on by that point, and she stared him down as she bit into the heart, and let the blood run down her chin. The Master sighed.  
  


When we made to leave, the Master put up his hand. "My prince," he said. "A word?"  
  


The Red Prince was holding his arm close; blood ran from the crook of his elbow, staining his shirt, reddening the chain links of his greaves, one by one. I started toward him, but he shook his head. "Speak," he said.  
  


"It is only to you I address myself," said the Master pointedly, and changed smoothly to the tongue of the Ancient Empire.  
  


There wasn't much we could do. Ifan, Sebille and I descended the temple steps. "I could eat now," grinned Sebille.  
  


"I'll dig up what we have," Ifan promised, already rooting around in his pack. "Might be able to shoot something later, but everything's too dead here."  
  


"That was fucking excellent," I told Sebille. "The way you stopped his voice—did you plan that?"  
  


She beamed at me, and she was pure joy, without bitterness, or suspicion—just—joy. It was like looking into the sun. "I've played this out in my head so many times—every detail, step by step by step. But I could never have _dreamed_ how perfectly it would all play out. It's almost enough to make a girl pay thanks to Tir-Cendelius. Almost." She picked a few strips of dried meat from the cloth Ifan had laid out again, and tore through them with her teeth.   
  


"Good on you, 'Bille," said Ifan, watching her with quiet amusement. "Fine work."  
  


"But I'd be lost without you, dearest," said Sebille, halfway joking. "Either of you. Thank you."  
  


"Of course," I said.  
  


"Any time," added Ifan. Then, turning to me: "What do you reckon they're talking about up there?"  
  


I shrugged. "Search me."  
  


Sebille's expression darkened, but she kept silent. "Oh!" she said, brightening. "Nearly forgot." She took out her needle, dug it into her forearm and dragged a straight line with it, all without so much as flinching.   
  


"D'you, er, want me to heal that?" I asked.  
  


"If you'd be so kind, dear. But leave the scar."  
  


I sat beside her and closed up the cut. As painful as it had looked, it was only a shallow thing. I humoured her and didn't heal it entirely, leaving a silvery scar. There were many like it, scattered up and down the length of her arm. Names, I realised, in Elvish script. The one she'd struck out was the name of the Master. She smiled at me when I looked up.  
  


It wasn't long before the Red Prince joined us, and Sebille looked him over with hawk's eyes. I looked, too. I didn't see anything unusual about him, save that he was holding his bloodied arm close. "What was that?" she demanded.  
  


"We ought to leave," said the Red Prince. "Like as not, the southeastern coast is w—"  
  


" _What was that?_ " snarled Sebille.   
  


He held her gaze, deciding on an answer, and cleared his throat. "Whatever misgivings you have, Sebille, I imagine you have more than enough reason. All things considered, you're owed some measure of transparency. In fact—" He stood a little wider, including Ifan and me in his audience, "—all of us would benefit from a sound discussion, but I would first put some distance between us and this place."  
  


Sebille narrowed her eyes at him. "That's all well and good, but I won't be led blind through the forest. Not after all this trouble. I pick our course until I know more."  
  


"Fine. As you will."  
  


I gave Farimah's pendant to Sebille so she could take point and keep away from any Black Ring. She wasn't comfortable having people behind her, and more than once I saw her startle at some small noise, start to look back and then stop herself halfway.  
  


She brought us back to the centre of the island, near the shrine to Rhalic.  
  


"You're not worried about the gods eavesdropping?" I asked her.  
  


"Gods are listening in anyway," said Ifan, patting his chest. "No getting around that."  
  


"Safiya?" asked the Red Prince faintly. "Could I prevail upon you?"  
  


"What?—oh, your arm!" I jumped a little when I saw exactly how much blood had been coming out of his cut. "Fucking hell. You didn't think to say something? Look at you!"  
  


He breathed out slowly and knelt on the dry grass. I sat beside him; Ifan and Sebille sat, too. Gently, I took hold of his arm and winced. Apparently one of the Master's blades had had teeth.   
  


"So speak, my _prince,_ " said Sebille. "What was that about?"  
  


"I scarcely know where to begin," said the Red Prince, with a wry smile. "I don't suppose any of you are acquainted with the myths of the House of Shadows?"  
  


"Shadows?" I echoed. "Wait. War, Dreams, er, Law, and—"  
  


"And nothing. There is no House of Shadows—at least, none the Empire knows of. And yet," he nodded in Sebille's direction, "your late Master would not only attest to its existence; he would claim to be its Prince."  
  


"What do the House of Shadows do, exactly?" asked Ifan.   
  


"Hm. As the stories have it, they represent the most elite—and the most covert—order of assassins on Rivellon. But to hear this so-called Shadow Prince. . ."  
  


"He adjusts the course of fate," put in Sebille. "Or some other such lark. He said some of that before we killed him, didn't he?"  
  


"About the mother tree taking over the world," said Ifan. He frowned at Sebille. "Is that true?"  
  


"I don't know." She sighed shakily. "If. . .it had to be me, if it had to be the Prime Scion, then. . ."  
  


"We could just. . .ask it," I said uncertainly. "The big tree in the elven temple?"  
  


"Not a bad idea," agreed Sebille. "I'm dying to know what Mother dear has to say for herself." She bit a piece of skin from her thumb. "If he was right—well. If he was right, that. . .isn't exactly a sunny prospect for us."  
  


"Right. We'll find the Tree," said Ifan, and pointed at the Red Prince. "But why'd he want to speak to you?"  
  


"Yes, that is rather a point of interest, isn't it. He was, apparently, aware of the prophecy regarding me. I'll remind you that the prophecy was made by the House of Dreams, and guarded so near to its heart that the greatest of the Dreamers consigned himself to the plane of nightmares, that he might live to pass it on to me."  
  


"And that's dragons," said Ifan.  
  


"As it seems. Not only was he aware of it—he was _distinctly_ disturbed by the possibility. As such, he. . ." The Red Prince paused and watched me work until I looked up. He caught my eye briefly, but didn't seem to find what he was looking for; he turned his gaze on the horizon. "He professed himself the architect of numerous attempts on my life."  
  


"That's. . .interesting," said Sebille. "I would have taken him for more of a patriot than that."  
  


"If we grant that his vision of the future is plausible, and that the rebirth of dragons would lead to the death of the lizard race, then he, in attempting to avert that course, is the patriot to end all patriots."  
  


"Was he right?" asked Ifan.  
  


The Red Prince drummed the ends of his claws on his thighs. "His theory was that, while the dragon descendants of Sadha and me will have dominion over Rivellon for a time, the other races will eventually strike back—and they will not stay their assault until there are no lizards, dragons or otherwise left on the face of the world." He sighed. "Whether time will prove him right, I cannot say."  
  


"Dominion over Rivellon," I murmured. "That's a dream come true for the Empire, isn't it?"  
  


"It is at that," said the Red Prince testily. "But the Emperor who dooms his subjects to a miserable end for a blaze of temporal glory, when he ought to be looking to the horizon. . .that name will be as a curse on the tongues of my people, until there are no mouths left to speak it."  
  


"Rousing," said Sebille, and one of her eyebrows twitched.  
  


"We still don't know if he was right," said Ifan. "If it were me, though, I'd not bother with the dragons. Given the risk of ending my whole race for good."  
  


"I suspect we've long since crossed the threshold from a linear argument to a circular one," remarked the Red Prince. "Perhaps a consultation with this Mother Tree will remedy that."  
  


"Eat something first," I said firmly.  
  


He blinked. "I hardly think—"  
  


" _Look,_ " I insisted, gesturing at the blood trail he'd left on our way, at the spatters around us, his bloodied greaves, my red hands. "This is all meant to be in your veins, not on the grass for a carpet, not on _me_ for gloves."  
  


"And I am fortunate beyond reckoning," snapped the Red Prince, "that our divine healer will condescend to see to me, but—"  
  


"If you won't make a fucking effort to keep yourself alive, then how do you expect me to do it?" I felt ill. "Eat something. I'm going to go to the shore and wash up."  
  


The shore was at least a quarter of an hour away on foot. I saw the huge bulk of the Lady Vengeance, and beside it, thrashing in the choppy coastal waves, a little sloop. I wondered who had sailed here in it. It couldn't have been the Black Ring.  
  


I washed my hands and my face, but there was no saving my robes. I was much sadder than I had a right to be—they're only clothes. But I'm sick to absolute death of being covered in other people's blood. I've been wearing the bit of red cloth you gave me at the end of my braid.   
  


The others hadn't left without me. If they had, I would have stolen that little boat on the coast and sailed as far away as I possibly could. We went north again, to speak to the tree.   
  


Do you know what? The Master, the Shadow Prince, whichever—he was absolutely right. About the Mother Tree wanting to take over the world. And she wanted to make Sebille her successor. The sloop I'd seen belonged to Saheila, who had been seized by a vision shortly after we left and had followed the Lady Vengeance, risking her life in a boat that was barely seaworthy all to do one thing: she'd come to beg Sebille to kill the Mother Tree, not to accept its offer. It was the only way the elves could be free.  
  


And Sebille, the Prime Scion, killed the tree, for her own reasons. But it still played out exactly the way the Master had wanted.  
  


The sun was setting, and I was ready to make camp somewhere—anywhere—but the Red Prince had one more item for the day. It was a cave on the southeastern edge of the island, full of Black Ring and a figure like. . .a very old man, all skin and bones, but surrounded by a veil of dark magic that made Amadia coil, frightened, in my soul. And she was right to be frightened; that creature nearly tore us to pieces, and the injuries it's left are festering—which means we won't sleep tonight, we'll be lying about feeling like corpses, and every few hours, I'll rinse each and every cut and scrape with salt water.  
  


Anyway—he hadn't dragged us along for the sake of a fight. (And thank the gods; if he'd made us all blood-sick for no good reason, I don't know what I would have done.) No: the creature's lair was hung everywhere with dark, glittering mirrors. The Red Prince peered into one of them. I looked over his shoulder, but I couldn't make anything out, even when he jolted beside me. "Do you see that?"  
  


"No," I said flatly. "Wait." I narrowed my eyes. I had the sense that there was a tiny sandstorm happening behind the glass; grains of yellow sand raced across the surface of the mirror. And I started to see the shapes of palm trees, of rich red drapes—and a figure on top of them, just as red. Sadha. Beside her was a cluster of several monstrous eggs. My breath caught. "You're joking."  
  


"My—" began the Red Prince, and cut himself off sharply. "Where is she? She cannot have returned to the Empire, and yet. . ."  
  


"Looks like desert," I said. "The only other desert is in Mezd."  
  


"There is. . .there is the Consulate in Arx. I can't think of any sane alternative."  
  


"Well, there you are," I said. My head was pounding; we weren't fevered then, but we would be soon. Walking was difficult, but I shuffled toward the mouth of the cave. The Red Prince stood before the mirror for another few moments, trying to commit every piece of the image to memory, and then followed us out. The four of us didn't struggle a very long way before we decided to give up and make camp on the spot. I asked Ifan and Sebille to get as much seawater as they could carry. I should have made the Red Prince do it, since it was his fault we needed it at all, but I wanted to talk to him.  
  


"I neglected to mention something about my encounter with the Shadow Prince," he said, before I had a chance to open my mouth.  
  


"Oh?"  
  


"You know that he aims to nip the dragon prophecy in the bud. To that end, he's asked that I kill Sadha."  
  


"Oh." I breathed in. "That's not nothing."  
  


"No, I would venture that it is, indeed, something." He fixed his gaze on me; his eyes were alight, like torches, in the last purple light of day. "Did you see them?"  
  


Them. "The, er, the eggs?"  
  


"If I choose to put my faith in the judgment of this Shadow Prince, then I am in the untenable position not only of having to execute my betrothed, but to—to do away with my children."  
  


"Well, shit," I said. "There's no good option here, is there?"  
  


"I want to disbelieve him. He may have been right regarding the matter of the elven tree, but. . ." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Damn it all. I'm thinking of an idiom involving a clock."  
  


"Er—"  
  


"A broken clock—"  
  


"Oh!" I snapped my fingers. "Stopped—er—'even a stopped clock is right twice a day'."  
  


"Yes. There. Ridiculous turn of phrase. My point is this: who's to say that his prediction holds water? And even if it did, why should the outcome be fixed?" The blood had dried in the chain links of his greaves. He picked at it with his finger, scraping it away as if it was a thin layer of rust. "What would you do?"  
  


"Me? I'd let the dragons come," I said, almost without thinking. "I don't think it's the better choice—I think it'll end badly, but I couldn't. . ." (Ula, it's silly, but I had this image of you, my wife, with three fat babies on your lap. One had my curly hair, and another had my blunt ears. All of them had your eyes.) "I couldn't. Not for my life."  
  


"Even knowing the potential danger?"  
  


"Well, I." I bit my lip. "In this situation, I'd be long dead before it ever got to be a problem. I'm not proud, I'm just saying I'm not a strong enough person to make the other choice."  
  


"You would happily doom your people in the long run," he sneered.  
  


"It's not my decision to make, _emri,_ and thank the gods for that."  
  


"Granted. For the sake of argument, then: if it was in the power of a mortal lizard to supervise the course of history, then surely a Divine would have no more trouble?"   
  


"Ifan and Sebille aren't going to let you ascend," I pointed out.  
  


He straightened, electrified, as if I'd spoken a secret password. "Ah. Strictly speaking, I don't need to. I need only to install someone who thinks along similar lines."  
  


"Well, that won't be Sebille," I snorted, trying for levity.  
  


"No," he said, spearing me with his gaze, "it won't be."  
  


"You're mad. You're absolutely out of your mind if you think I'm going to do it."  
  


"I can't say I expected otherwise." He stretched his arms out before him. "It seems the gods take pleasure in making my path as bitter as possible."  
  


"Gods, nothing," I murmured, and lay down, propping my head up on my pack.  
  


"I should apologise for this afternoon," he began. "In hindsight, I needn't have been half so obstinate about taking a moment's rest."  
  


"That's true."  
  


"Depressingly rare, these days, to be near someone who, beyond not actively campaigning for my death, will take pains to prevent it. I ought to count my blessings, really."  
  


I turned on my side to look at him. "You don't still think I'm a demon? Or a very good assassin?"  
  


"By the Lady's obsidian claw, if you've posed as a hapless young healer for this long and made me believe it, I deserve the blade."  
  


"Hm. Well," I said, dragging myself upright as Ifan and Sebille's silhouettes came out of the forest, "probably we've all caught a plague from that rotten creature. Let's see what sort of a healer I am."


	20. Day 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is NSFW!

You know I thought I understood at least the basics of this whole mess—Divinity, the gods—today I found out that I don't know a single thing. And I think I might have murdered my Mum.  
  


Let me start from the beginning.  
  


We were meant to enter the building Alexandar had called the "Academy" first thing yesterday, but we were still laid out with fever. I would have given us another day, but the others didn't want to risk it, so I got us on our feet (a little cooling rune in the middle of the forehead does wonders). Before we set out, there was the problem of Divinity—we went back and forth for what seemed like hours. But Ifan's plan of dividing Source across all Rivellon won out, because if it hadn't, Sebille and the Red Prince would have come to blows. So we barged inside before any of us had the chance to second-guess.  
  


A very polite, very well-spoken Voidwoken caught us on our way inside, and that was where I started to lose the plot. The seven gods had been part of a race named the Eternals, and banished their kin to the Void in order to seize power. . .if nothing else, it does fit with what I know about the gods. And it mentioned Fane. "Fane the Betrayer". Trompdoy had called him the "idiot who wrecked the world" (that feels like years ago, but it can't have been more than a few weeks, can it?).   
  


What that comes down to is that the Voidwoken actually have every right to take over the world. Pushing farther into the Academy, we came across the remains of dozens and dozens of Godwoken, murdered by the Divine Lucian. I suppose in order to make sure Alexandar would be the one to succeed him. (Which makes him exactly as petty and self-interested as the Void, I think.)  
  


By tradition, the way the new Divine is chosen from all the eligible Godwoken is by a free-for-all in a great Arena—first to reach the Well. Lohse was back—and Fane, and the Beast of the Sea, having been resurrected by some shadowy 'Him'. They were none too happy to see us, but we would have made it to the Wellspring all right if only Dallis hadn't shown up, Purged the entire Well, and blown up the Arena behind her so that Malady had to swoop in and save us.  
  


The piece of Amadia in my soul seemed to boil over with rage, and she manifested herself in front of me—my mother again, because she's the cruellest of the Seven. My mother, just a touch shorter than I am, with her hair slung into a haphazard bun, because she always had better things to worry about. She touched the side of my face with warm fingers. " _S_ _afasaf._ "  
  


"I know," I gabbled, "I know, I know, we were too late, I'm sorry—"  
  


"We need to fix this, sweetheart, together." There wasn't a trace of anger in her eyes— _her_ eyes, brown eyes, not the Source-blue eyes of a god. I started to wonder if it was really her. "All you have to do is let me help you."  
  


"OK," I whispered, "OK, Mum."  
  


The next thing I remember is waking up on the top deck of the Lady Vengeance as the massive ship floated through the Hall of Echoes. You can understand why I panicked. I was certain I'd died.  
  


When I cracked open my eyes, all I saw was the endless blue of the Hall of Echoes. "Mum," I rasped, lifting my head.  
  


"Not I," said a voice I recognised. I realised then that I was on the ship—a ship—and that the wind was howling. The Red Prince was kneeling just by my head. I didn't know him for a few moments. I looked hard into his eyes until I had some idea who he was, and who I was, and where I was and when and why.  
  


I sat upright, and my head was like a boulder. I held my face in my hands. " _Emri._ "  
  


"Mm?"  
  


"Will you do me a favour and tell me what's just happened?"  
  


He tucked a stray bit of hair behind my ear. "That depends. Where does your recollection begin to fail?"  
  


"Er—the fight. We went into the Academy, and then the fight and. . .Dallis. . .wait. Dallis showed up, and then—?"  
  


"And then proceeded to Purge the Wellspring of Ascension in its entirety before absconding. Frustrating business, that."  
  


". . .all right," I said, blowing out a long breath. "Not all right, but. After that?"  
  


"After that, our four resident Gods, incensed by our failure to secure Divinity, decided to take matters into their own hands."  
  


"And what happened?"  
  


"We dispatched them, evidently. Not, if I may, on the strength of your quick thinking."  
  


"What? But—I don't remember seeing any gods. I r—" I chewed my lip. "I had a dream about my mother while I was laid out, but that's. . ."  
  


"Ah," said the Red Prince, in a tone suggesting he'd gotten to the root of my problem and was about to announce the solution. "That was no dream. While Zorl-Stissa and the others took up arms against their chosen, your Amadia seemed to coax you. I'll grant that my attentions were elsewhere while I was engaged in the act of deicide, but that is the best I can make of it."  
  


"What do you mean they wanted to take matters in their own hands? D'you mean they wanted to take our Source?"  
  


"That seems likely."  
  


And I had just let Amadia take over. I pushed the heels of my hands into my temples. "You must think I'm an idiot."  
  


"Must I?" He smiled wryly at me. "I suppose I might express my admiration for your Amadia, who played her hand like a black marketeer."  
  


"I just—offered up my life to her. 'Here, Mum'. Just like that." I breathed in, held my breath for a bit, and breathed out as slowly as I could. "It's—when your mother says that. . .everything is going to be all right, you have—to believe it. Don't you? I thought—"  
  


"Please," he said mildly, cutting me off. "Your misfortune was that she found a weak point early on, and profited from it over the course of weeks—or months. No one is free of weakness."  
  


"Except the Red Prince," I grinned, pulling my legs toward me.  
  


"That goes without saying." The look he gave me was frank and contained just a bit of self-mockery. We both knew it wasn't true. "Not unimpressive, incidentally, to have held fast to your sanity for so long."  
  


"Thank you." I wished I hadn't picked the worst possible moment to finally break, but I didn't bother saying so. "Why are we on the Lady Vengeance now?"  
  


"Malady did us the kindness of plucking us from the fiery maw of the arena. She intends to spend a few hours regathering her faculties before taking us any farther. Dallis, for her own part, has most likely flown for Arx."  
  


"Arx?" I couldn't help smiling, despite everything. "Is that where we're going?"  
  


"It is. Your journey, at least, may be nearing its end." There was a flicker of a reproach in his voice.  
  


"Oh, I—" I stammered. "I don't know. I don't know what will have happened to the city. We'll see."  
  


"I imagine we will."  
  


I got to my feet. "If we have a few hours to kill, I'm going to go below deck. This—" I smiled unsteadily and gestured at the blue nothingness around us, "—this is no good for my nerves."  
  


"Now is as good a time as any to rest," the Red Prince agreed, standing. "The late gods only know when the next opportunity might present itself."  
  


We went downstairs intending to find the quarters in the middle deck, but something new caught my eye. Double doors, carved out of a dark material (mahogany?) and polished to a gleam. I stopped in my tracks. "Er. _Emri?_ "  
  


"I see them. They are hardly inconspicuous."  
  


I looked back at him and laughed a befuddled, disbelieving laugh. "What in the bloody hell?" I pushed tentatively on the right door, and, heavy as it was, it gave way without a sound. But if the doors were strange, the inside of the room itself took my breath away. It was a stately bedchamber the sort that would cost hundreds of coppers at a posh tavern, warmed and lit by two bright oil lamps, with a large, soft-looking four-poster bed in its center, like an island. " _What._ "  
  


"This," said the Red Prince, coming to stand beside me, "strikes me as an improbability."  
  


The smell of freshly sanded wood was in my nostrils. Feeling like an idiot, I cleared my throat and addressed the Lady Vengeance in Elvish. " _Is this. . .your doing?_ "  
  


" _Yes,_ " said the ship after a moment. " _A gift._ "  
  


" _Oh,_ " I mumbled. ". . .Thank you."  
  


Silence.  
  


I turned to the Red Prince. "It's, er, a gift from the ship."  
  


"Marvellous. I won't turn down the chance to sleep on something not stuffed with straw."  
  


"Looks big enough to share," I yawned into my sleeve. "Well, big enough for common folk to share. Maybe His Majesty wants the night to himself?"  
  


"Don't be daft, Safiya."  
  


"Oh, good," I mumbled, and flopped face-first onto the bed. I could have cried. The next best bed I've had in the last few months was in the tavern in Driftwood, but that couldn't compare to this—smooth, cushiony and with actual springs in the mattress! The sheets were snow-white and the covers a dark red, both cut from a fabric I'd never felt; it had the feel of silk, but it was thick and warm as wool or velvet. And soft. Everything was so soft.  
  


"That can hardly be comfortable," said the Red Prince, toying with my disintegrating braid as I lay spread-eagled, halfway on and halfway dangling off the side of the bed.  
  


I groaned and dragged myself upright, stifling another yawn as I glanced around the room. "She could have done us up a vanity or something." I pulled my stained robes over my head and folded them halfheartedly, placing them on a pile with my pack. Reluctantly, I untied your scrap of red fabric from the end of my braid and shook my hair loose, and sighed; I could barely be arsed to lift my arms to redo it. ". . .hey, _emri?_ "  
  


"I was counting the seconds. Come here, then."  
  


I shuffled onto the centre of the bed and turned my back to him. "Thank you."   
  


"Mm."  
  


The silence that followed was like a blanket. I didn't want to break it, but I did. "I wonder if we've lost our chance at Divinity."  
  


"I should certainly hope not," he murmured. "Not that it would have been a great boon to me, at all events."  
  


I felt the faint warmth of him at my back and leaned into it. "What would you have done if we'd gotten Ifan to the well?"  
  


"What was necessary. As ever."  
  


"And what does that mean?"   
  


"Dealing with the long-term threat. Even should it cost me my happiness for the time being."  
  


He'd stopped. I felt for the end of my braid to see whether or not he'd finished with it, and found his hand still there. "I'm so sorry you've got to make that decision," I said, tentatively, drawing my hand away again.  
  


"Spare me," he scoffed, and now I knew he was done by the way the heat of his presence behind me faded.   
  


I turned around. "I mean it," I flared. I'd hoped we were past this—trading jabs. "I didn't think you wanted my praise."  
  


"Your pity is of no more use to me."  
  


"It's not pity!" I burst out, exasperated. "And I know you don't need it."  
  


"Then I'll thank you," he snapped, "not to foist it upon me as if I were a—a crumbling building that wanted propping up."  
  


I was quiet. I looked hard at him, trying to puzzle him out. He'd drawn himself up to all his regal height and was watching me as if I were something small—a scorpion—something small enough to be barely worth noticing, but which might kill him if he moved wrong. I was careful with my words. "I don't think you need propping up from anyone. I'm just unhappy because I can see that you're unhappy. That's it."  
  


He closed his eyes and sank onto the bed. I lay down too, letting my head drop into a pillow that felt like a cloud. "I'm exhausted, Safiya," he mumbled at last.  
  


"I know," I said softly. "Get a bit of sleep." I followed my own advice—I'd been nodding since I woke up on the ship, and now, wrapped in a satiny duvet, I couldn't even move to put out the lamp on the nightstand before I fell asleep.  
  


He was gone when I opened my eyes again, but before I'd made up my mind to go back to the top deck, he reappeared in the doorway. "Good morning, for all the meaning that time may hold in this place."  
  


"Morning," I yawned. "Are we leaving?"  
  


"Not for another half day, if not longer. So Malady says. I suppose there is no better judge of her condition than the woman herself."  
  


I grinned and nestled further into the covers. "Back to bed, then."  
  


"Actually," said the Red Prince, "if you can stand the horrors of the waking world for a moment more, I—have something for you."  
  


"Oh?" I sat bolt upright, seized by curiosity. "What is it?" My eye fell on the two tin cups in his hand, and I grinned. "Did you stop by the galley?"  
  


He smiled mysteriously and sat next to me on the side of the bed, handing the cups to me. "Hold onto these."  
  


I waited as he searched the inside of his pack for something. The cups he'd picked weren't even the ugliest in the galley. These were only slightly tarnished, not black and dented like most of the others, but sad to look at all the same.  
  


"Ah. Here." He came up with a small glass bottle in hand.  
  


"Wow," I said. I couldn't help it. The glasswork was breathtaking; delicate, nearly paper-thin, with tiny intricate mosaics in blue and purple. Each little piece had been individually stained and then attached, not painted after the fact. A line of liquid gold, applied with an incredibly steady hand, spiraled around the perimeter of the bottle. The stopper was a brilliant blue petal, scored with little lines to mimic veins. My head spun to think how many hours had gone into this small, beautiful thing. "It's gorgeous. What's in it?—Perfume?"  
  


The Red Prince snorted. "Perfume. Yes. Precisely. That's why I braved that filthy kitchen, so that you and I could drink of a bottle of perfume."  
  


"Ah. Right." I looked down at the cups in my hands. "Wine, then?"  
  


"Not any common wine." He swirled the bottle, and the liquid inside sloshed, blue-black behind the coloured glass. "These grapes grow in exactly one place on the face of all Rivellon—the Imperial gardens of my Forbidden City. The value of a single bottle like this is inestimable."  
  


"It must have taken so long," I said. Very, very gingerly, I reached out to run my finger over the tiled glass. "Do you have artisans there, just making things like this? Or do you get craftsmen from outside the City?"  
  


"Precious little of this wine is ever bottled, and precious few are they who can do it justice in the bottling. The palace has in residence the finest glassblower in the Empire. But come," he said, unstoppering the bottle. "This is only the vessel."  
  


"Er," I said, suddenly panicked, "are you absolutely sure about this? I—am I the one you want to be—?"  
  


"I was saving this in order to celebrate my return to the Empire. But I seem to have found a moment sweeter still."  
  


"Now—" My heart was hammering harder even that it had on that first night by the fire in Reaper's Coast, in that god-awful makeshift tent. "—what in the Void does _that_ mean? Do you want to sleep with me? If that's what this is, then you don't need to waste your one-of-a-kind priceless—"  
  


"Safiya," he said, endlessly gentle, and put a steadying hand on my arm, running his thumb back and forth—I had gooseflesh wherever he touched. "If you'll have me, I would love nothing more than for us to lie together, here. But if I were after some empty little liaison, let the gods help me, I would have said so."  
  


"Then what are you after?" I was shaking for no reason at all. I wanted to wrench my arm away and I wanted him to hold me for ever.  
  


He sighed, stoppered the bottle again and set it on the nightstand. Then he took the ghastly tin cups from my hands and set them there, too. "Safiya," he repeated, taking my hands in his. ". . .beloved."  
  


I stiffened. The word made me swell with joy, so much that I thought I would burst at the seams—but there was just as much fear, needling at me, that this was some long strategic play. "You're mad," I said, leaning forward, laying my head on his shoulder. He put his arms around me and pulled me close. At some point, my breathing slowed, and I felt halfway like myself again. I moved away slowly.  
  


"Will you partake with me?" he asked. "Afterward, you can sleep for as long as you would."  
  


"No," I said. He wilted—I went on quickly. "What I mean is no—I liked your first plan."  
  


"Ah," he smirked, although I saw the relief in his face. "I am a fortunate man. Divinity pales in comparison."  
  


"I wish you'd stop saying silly things."  
  


"Silly things? 'Beloved' among them?"   
  


My face flushed, if possible, hotter than before. I grabbed the cups off the nightstand. "Go on, then."  
  


Unstoppering the bottle again, he poured its contents first into one cup and then the other. When the tiny bottle was empty, each cup was a third of the way full, if that. He set the bottle aside and I handed him one of the cups. "This is a travesty," he laughed. "If I hadn't already been exiled, serving this most prized of nectars in common pewter would be ground enough."  
  


"It still tastes the same," I assured him, biting back laughter, too. "Cheers."   
  


"To your health," he said.  
  


"And yours," I grinned. Simple thing to toast about. I was glad. The tin cups made a horrid clanging noise when we put them together, and I laughed helplessly to see his sour expression. We drank the first sip at the same time—nearly the same time, I had to stop myself laughing so I wouldn't choke. It was good; a sweet, stout dark red that settled in my chest and warmed my blood. "This is amazing."  
  


"Good. I'm partial to it myself." He tapped his claws against the side of the cup, and then stopped sharply when it made that horrible tinny noise. "Could I enquire at last about this appellation of yours?"  
  


" _'Emri'_?"  
  


"That."  
  


I smiled. "I want—your name, then."  
  


"All right," he said, to my surprise. "I will say this: traditionally, the crown Prince has dozens upon dozens of clandestine names. As a safety measure. And I required more safekeeping than most."  
  


"OK."  
  


"You may have my most favourite. Happily for you, it is also the most pronounceable in the common tongue." He leaned closer. I could smell the cloying sweetness of the wine on his breath—or maybe it was my breath. "I will do this for you, provided that you _swear_ to me neither to speak it to another, nor put it to paper, for any reason. Do I have your word?"  
  


"Yes," I said.  
  


He gave his name to me. And I gave him my word not to write it down, so. (It starts with an H.)  
  


"H——," I said, trying to make it fit in my mind. "H——. It suits you."  
  


"How long it has been since I have heard it spoken to me."  
  


"Er, since you asked, 'emr' is 'prince'. 'Emri' is 'my prince'."  
  


"Your prince," he said, deliberately, giving me a look that made my face burn all the way up to my ears. "Your creativity does you credit."  
  


"You didn't figure it out," I shrugged. "I think I did well enough." I finished the last of my wine and set the cup back on the nightstand, now thoroughly warm and feeling as if I was floating when I walked. I stood up and stepped out of my trousers, which were both ratty and—since we'd been living off of bits of dried fruit and whatever scrawny game roamed the forests of the Nameless Isle—oversized. "I'm going to buy myself some decent clothes when we get to Arx, I think." I looked up—he was already lavishing his gaze on me; my hips, my belly. "It's nothing you've not seen before," I said, worrying my bottom lip with my teeth as I undid the laces in the front of my bra.  
  


He watched me in silence, as if it was vitally important that he take in every detail. I ran my hand over the rough burn scar that spread up and down my right side, crawling from my hip and coming to a stop just beneath my breast. "Are you just going to stare?" I asked.  
  


"I could. I could spend eternity just. . .staring." He blinked as if breaking himself out of a spell, and pulled his shirt over his head. "It occurs to me," he went on, tossing it aside, "that I've only ever glimpsed you—in the firelight, in the half-dark. So, yes, I'll take my time about looking, now that I finally, finally have the opportunity."  
  


"Come here, then. And—will you take those off?"  
  


"It will be my pleasure," he said, and took off his greaves, and stood beside me. I ran my hands down his front, marvelling, still, at the solidity of him—the lean, powerful muscles in his sides, in his shoulders, the thick, platelike scales on his chest.   
  


For his part, he seemed drawn to every scar and blemish he could find on my body. The great burn on my side was the most obvious. I shivered as he drew his hand slowly across the pink, raw skin, following it all the way down, and ghosted the ends of his claws lightly from the side of my hip, across the curve of my stomach—he stopped to trace the black trail of hair that ran down from my navel. My breaths became shallower.  
  


I had a moment to calm down when his attention went to the scar just below my right elbow—the one he'd put there. I wondered what he was thinking as he caressed it with the pads of his fingers. I covered his hand with mine—my left hand, whose pointer finger had been torn off. He noticed that, too—took my hand in his and pressed his lips to my knuckles.  
  


"I feel," he said, still holding my hand so close that his breath flared on my skin, "as if I could read the whole tale of our journey in your body."  
  


I smiled, halfway bitter. "And you haven't got a scratch on you."  
  


He hesitated before he spoke, and I saw his hand flicker down to his side, where the arrow had pierced him through, weeks and weeks ago. I touched that same spot—his skin was softer there than almost anywhere else, and I thought I felt something like a dent. I took him by the shoulders and turned him around so that he was in the full glow of the oil lamp, and knelt to get a better look. There was no real scar, at least not in the way I expected, just a small flaw in the pattern of his scales, like a weaving error in a piece of fabric. I kissed that spot, feeling the tiny crater of it against my lips. I felt him shudder and, grinning, stood up again.  
  


"Take down your hair," he said.  
  


"What?"  
  


"I want to see it, fanned out across the pillow. A crown."  
  


"If you like. You're the one who's going to do it up again." I shrugged and started to take it out, but he came to stand behind me and moved my hands away, gently shaking out my hair. "Put that red bit of cloth on the nightstand," I said. "I don't want to lose it."  
  


"I know." He stepped away to put down the cloth scrap and came back, gathered all of my hair over one shoulder, and rested his head in the crook of my other shoulder, the one he'd just bared.   
  


You're not what I expected at all," I said.  
  


"No?" he murmured into my ear, making all the hairs on my neck stand on end.   
  


"No," I said, struggling to keep my train of thought as he ran his hands over my breasts. "I mean—given. . .your reputation, and the reputation of the Empire, I was expecting—you know—forceful. Dominant."  
  


He stood in front of me again. "Is that what you want?" he asked, in a tone suddenly low and commanding.  
  


I grinned at him and raised my eyebrows. He stepped closer, unsmiling, backing me toward the bed, and I had a moment to realise what he was going to do before he pushed me hard onto the bed and pinned me down, straddling my hips with his knees, holding my wrists over my head. He leaned in close, boring into me with his fiery eyes. I lifted my head up quickly, pressed a tiny kiss to his mouth and stared him down—we both started laughing at the same moment.  
  


"I do expect some cooperation, Safiya," he said, letting go of my hands.  
  


"Couldn't help it. Next time." I looked up at him. He was balanced on my hips, his tail sweeping idly back and forth, brushing against my legs. I took hold of his thighs and resettled him a bit so that his hipbone wasn't digging into mine so much. "You look. . .handsome, like this," I said.  
  


"I defy you to find an angle from which I don't look handsome."  
  


"I know, but you should see yourself right now." Digging my fingers into the strong, supple muscle of his thighs, I ground my hips up against his and he breathed in sharply, bracing his hands on my legs. "Can I ask you a question? Don't be angry."  
  


"What?"  
  


"Have you ever—how do I put this—have you ever taken a cock before?"  
  


"Ah. Another question tactfully phrased," he drawled, as if I hadn't felt him jolt against me when I asked it. "Yes, as a matter of fact. I don't find it disagreeable. Although I choose my partners with a _very_ critical eye."  
  


"Am I up to your standards, then?" I asked, rubbing circles into his thighs. He sighed and wrapped his tail around my ankle.  
  


"I should think so. But I hardly see that it matters now."  
  


"It doesn't, no," I began, my stomach dropping through the floor. I'm always afraid to make assumptions with him—every day being uncertain and all that. "But nex—when we get to Arx. . .I—I have a house there, obviously, and I k—"  
  


He chuckled lowly. "That, my dear, is a prospect."  
  


"You look _so_ good," I said helplessly, and took a last lingering look at him. He was powerfully built, obviously, but I was more mesmerised by the way he swayed, nearly too subtle to see, the muscles in his sides working to keep his balance. "Here, get off me, and I'll make it up to you."  
  


He did, and I suppose he knew what I had in mind when I knelt on the floor, and motioned for him to come and sit on the side of the bed. I wasn't planning to play fair—I put a hand on each of his knees and parted his legs, pressing ice-cold lips to the soft skin of his inner thighs, so soft I wanted to bury my face in them. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. He tensed at first, and his breath caught every time my mouth came up against him, but I wasn't in a hurry; I licked slow, icy lines toward his slit, feeling his legs shake more and more the closer I got to his centre, and finally his cock emerged, hot as coals and already glistening. I had the urge to take him whole into my mouth and make him cry out from the sudden cold, but I felt benevolent. I kissed, carefully, all the way up his length, then closed my lips just around the head and sucked hard. He groaned.  
  


"That's good," I coaxed. "Let me hear you."  
  


Despite my best efforts, he kept very quiet, even when I took all of him into my mouth and built up an earnest rhythm, up and down, I got nothing more than the odd broken breath, the odd gasp. I was using just a touch of Hydrosophy so I could feel him—not as strongly as that night in the rain, but enough that I knew exactly when to pull away. He bucked his hips on a reflex, and I grinned and held his thighs in place. "You have such a lovely rich voice," I breathed, "I want more."  
  


He nodded, shakily. We waited, together, for him to relax a little. I felt him beneath my hands, like a coiled spring. The second time I went more slowly, dragging my tongue along the underside of his shaft, and when my jaw started to tire, I closed my fingers around his cock and squeezed just a bit, drew circles around the head with my thumb and then made slow, leisurely strokes. His body was always eager, but hearing his voice—the long, stifled 'mm' when I picked up my pace—I ached for every little sound. And I stopped short again, of course, and his hand went toward his cock. I moved it away. "Careful—we might have to bind your hands," I said, before I could think about it, but it was the right thing, apparently—he sighed, and his cock twitched, so painfully hard that even I could feel it throbbing. "Poor thing," I murmured, and kissed his lower stomach, just above the base of his cock. It only made his body strain harder.  
  


"If—if you want another round out of me," he managed, as I ran my fingers gently down his length, "y-you'll—ah—you'll be _silent._ "  
  


"Poor, sweet thing," I teased, and then I really did have to keep quiet, and take my hands away, or I would have pushed him over the brink. I felt cruel, watching him struggle to unwind again, but he was such a beautiful sight, twisting as he fought back his arousal. "I want you to say my name," I told him, before I put my lips to his cock again.  
  


"S— _ah,_ " he hissed, almost immediately, and tangled his fingers in my hair. I let him, for the time being. "Mm, Sa—ah—fiya—" and then he spat a string of Ancient Empire curses, hard and grating, louder when I pulled away again, "—hah—how can you know the exact— _instant_ —?"  
  


I laughed. "I know because I'm cheating, love." It was a moment before I realised what I'd said, 'love', but neither of us remarked on it.   
  


He breathed out, slow and shuddering. "I should have known."  
  


"Just be easy. We have time." I waited a minute or two, all the while stroking his thighs with gentle hands. "There's one more thing I'd like," I said. "I want to hear the word 'please'. OK?"  
  


"But you _are_ demanding."  
  


"I'm not demanding, I'm asking a favour," I said sweetly. "Just a favour."  
  


He nodded, and I teased at the head of his cock again, swirling my tongue around it, and his whole body trembled. When I took all of him in my mouth again, I heard my name once or twice in a sea of curses, first in Common, and then in the tongue of the Empire, then just one word, over and over again. He moaned, louder than before, and his voice cracked when I pumped the base of his cock with my hand, faster and faster. When he came, his whole body tensed, he drew a desperate breath and exhaled my name. I swallowed his spend, just because I'd tormented him for so long.   
  


"You didn't say 'please'," I told him, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.  
  


"Yes, I did, Safiya. Copiously." He repeated the foreign word he'd been saying. "You put me out of my mind, I couldn't find it in any other tongue."  
  


"Oh. I'll settle for that." I sat on the bed beside him. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to compose himself. I smiled and rubbed his back. "D'you need a minute?"  
  


He stood, walked over to the nightstand, downed the last dregs of his wine and then took a knee in front of me. I held my breath, feeling my face burn under his gaze.  
  


"Rather a heady feeling, isn't it?" He ran his tongue along my inner thigh and laughed lowly when I squeaked. "To have the Red Prince at your feet?"  
  


I nearly bit through my lip—I had to look away, even just for a second, or I wouldn't have known what to do with myself.  
  


"Stand up," he said. I did, bewildered. He backed me up against the wall and pressed his body to mine, pushing his thigh between my legs. I ground against him, the pressure and the texture of his scales on my sex made me shiver. He drew back, just a bit, and took my breasts in his hands, drawing circles over my nipples in that slow, maddening way of his. I gasped when he ran his tongue across one of them, licking a smooth, searing stripe, dragging the golden piercing along—I dug my fingers into his back.  
  


I could have stayed like that for hours. I was almost disappointed when he knelt down again—and then he drew his fingers down the insides of my thighs, claws catching in the divots of my stretch marks, and I had to close my eyes against that overwhelming dizzy feeling. "I won't be able to stand in a bit," I panted.  
  


"I know," he said, stroking the thatch of black curls between my legs. "I'm going to unravel you. I want to watch it happen."  
  


"Please," I said. And that tongue—that keen, wicked tongue—I cursed him in my mind for having kept it from me for so long. The _instant_ it came against me, I jerked as if a current had gone through me and pushed my nails into the wooden wall hard enough to hurt. I breathed in carefully. "Just to warn you," I sighed, "I get a little beside myself. Not—not saying I've broken noses, but— _ah,_ ah—"  
  


He came up briefly and smiled. "Beloved, I am nothing if not resilient."  
  


So I stood and braced my hands against the wall the best I could and agonized and twisted and groaned under his every touch. The first time I came it heated my whole body, a flying feeling, like bubbles rising. He chuckled—I felt the rumble of it on my skin—and didn't leave me a moment to breathe; I started to go weak in my legs. A shudder went down my spine. The trembling numbness gave way to pleasure—again—bigger this time, and the second time it was heavy, concentrated in my core, and I nearly couldn't breathe. Each climax made me needier, and I worried I might never stop wanting. The muscles in my sides and my thighs started to seize. He slipped inside me a little ways with his tongue and I cried out to the gods—and he pulled away.  
  


"Please," I breathed, nearly past the point of speaking. "Please, please, _please_ —"  
  


"Safiya," he soothed, and kissed the inside of my thigh. "I wanted to point out that the gods, as matters stand, are unlikely to hear you."  
  


Even desperate as I was, I smiled, because I knew what he wanted. "Please, H——," I said, drawing out his name. And his hands clenched on my thighs, just a bit, and his claws left little scratches. I didn't care. He curled his long tongue inside me again—I rocked my hips sharply, trying to close a distance that wasn't there. I laughed when I came, and I couldn't stop. The bones in my legs were water. He still had his hands on the insides of my thighs, laying me open; I covered his hands with mine. "Love. Love. Look at me."  
  


He did. I'm sure the Safiya looking down at him was an utter wreck.  
  


"I can't," I said, between peals of laughter, "I can't stand up."  
  


"Oh?" He got to his feet and pressed my body into the wall with his. "Are you quite at your limit?" he half-whispered into my ear.  
  


I breathed in. "Put me on the bed and do me one more."  
  


"Is that an order?"  
  


"Yes," I beamed.  
  


"Then I can do no less than obey." He kissed my neck, just behind my ear, then picked me up and laid me on the bed. I tangled my fingers in the bedsheets, glad for something to hold onto. His hand went back to where it had been, rubbing small, insistent circles over the same oversensitive spot. I made a sound like a growl. He explored my upper body with his free hand, thumbed my nipple—licked the film of sweat from my stomach, where my muscles were painfully taut. He was so gentle. I was not gentle; I writhed harder than ever under his attention and I gasped his name, the fourth and last time.  
  


I sighed with relief. He lay down beside me, leaning on his elbow, and I turned to face him—he took my hand in his and laced our fingers together, and all my breath caught in my lungs because I loved him for a second. I turned away again, looking up at the drapes of the four-poster, still with his hand in mine. "My prince," I said, quietly. He was silent. We lay just like that. I never wanted to have to leave—but I was the one to sit up, after however long. I climbed off the bed and searched the smaller pockets of my pack until I found what I was looking for: a small glass phial of coconut oil I'd bought for my hair. Some bird in Driftwood had charged me thirty pieces for it, since it was imported. I hesitated. Did I want to sacrifice it? He'd given up his priceless Imperial wine for me, I reasoned, and I'd be able to buy more once we were in Arx.   
  


I held up the phial. "If you still have a bit of life left in you. . .?"  
  


He held out his hand for the phial, and I gave it to him. "Oil?" he asked, peering at it. "I'll raise no objection, but—"  
  


"D'you want to do my arse? That's what I'm asking."  
  


"Ah."  
  


"I trust you," I said. "All you need to do is listen to me."  
  


"When have I ever done otherwise?" I couldn't tell whether or not he was being dry. He held the phial back out to me.  
  


"You can do the honours, if you like," I said.  
  


"I'm afraid I can't." He showed me his fingers—right; claws. I nodded and lay down. He sat at my feet. Frowning, he touched the scratches on my thighs. "Surely that wasn't my doing?"  
  


" _I_ didn't put them there," I grinned.  
  


He shook his head, troubled. "I never make a mark unless I intend it."  
  


I shrugged and uncorked the phial. "You did this time."  
  


"Well, you—have my apologies."  
  


I shot him a baffled smile. "I don't need them. It happens." I turned on my side, swirled my finger around in the clear oil, and pressed it slowly inside myself. "You did a good job warming me up, I think." Biting my lip, I moved my leg a little to give him a better view.  
  


"Naturally. I'll stand for nothing short of excellence," he replied, but his heart wasn't in it—all his focus was on me, his hand resting on my knee as he watched me move.  
  


"Have an etching made," I laughed, starting to move my finger—slowly—in, and out. "It'll last longer."  
  


"Would that I could," he said, in the same absent-minded tone. He ran his thumb back and forth over my knee. I placed my free hand over his.  
  


It was a minute, or several, before I dipped two fingers in the oil again and eased them back inside me. I stilled, waiting for my body to relax around them. "One more after this," I said, breathing deeply.  
  


"I will be the last person on earth to goad you, Safiya. Take another day about it, for my part, so long as I have you to look at."  
  


"I absolutely won't. I'll spoil my wrist. Mm." I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feeling as I moved both fingers. "I've missed this—you," I said.  
  


"Oh?" I heard his smile. "I have been no farther away than a ship's breadth, if that."  
  


"Pff." I nudged him with my foot. "You know what I mean. Having you near."  
  


"Ah," he said.  
  


When I sank in the third finger, he ran his fingers over his slit, and his grip tightened on my knee. My hand felt clammy on his, but I didn't want to move it. His cock didn't need much coaxing at all—it was hard in his hand, and gleaming, by the time I was ready.  
  


I shook out my sore wrist and grabbed one of the pillows to put under my hips. The other one I laid under my head. "Come here, then," I said.   
  


He parted my legs and settled himself between them. "May I?" he asked.  
  


"Please."  
  


Slowly—slowly—carefully as anything, and with a quiet groan, he buried himself inside me, and leaned over me on his hands, so that we were face to face.  
  


I looked up at him, trying to calm my breathing. "How long can you keep that up, d'you think?"  
  


He lifted one hand, putting his weight on the other, and stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers; a show of his strength, I supposed. "Exactly as long as necessary," he said smoothly.  
  


"Good. You're not allowed to move for a bit."  
  


"I wouldn't dream of it."  
  


We looked one another in the eye.  
  


"How do you feel?" he asked me.  
  


"I don't hurt," I promised. "I'll tell you if I do."  
  


I thought I was going to melt the way he was looking at me, intent on my every move. Always my favourite part, having someone inside, both of us perfectly still, both bursting with anticipation. I beamed up at him, cupping the side of his face with my hand. "So. How has your day been?"  
  


"Exceptional," he said. "In spite of circumstances."  
  


"I'm glad. You can move again, if you like. If you go slow."  
  


He pulled out of me, very gradually, and I bit hard into my lip when he entered me again.   
  


"Good," I said. "Keep that pace for a bit."  
  


For now, he was quiet, except for a tiny noise of exertion here and there. I pulled him down toward me, wrapping my arms around his neck. "You can move a little faster," I whispered, and he, the model of self-control, increased his pace only by the slightest bit. I urged him on, digging my heels into his back, and shivered to hear his low moan in my ear each time he moved inside me. I brought my hand down between my legs and circled the nub there in time with every thrust of his hips. It was still a little raw to the touch, but I couldn't care. "Please," I said under my breath, "please, please," on and on. I came so hard my vision went dark for a moment. He shuddered and sighed my name and went still.  
  


As carefully as before, he pulled out of me—watched me for a moment, brushed the stray hairs out of my face, and lay beside me. My breathing slowed. I rested my head on his chest; he ran his fingers through my hair.  
  


"Mm," I murmured at last, "I want to sleep, but. . ."  
  


"Our waking would mark the end of this blissful interlude."  
  


"That's what I'm saying."  
  


"How perfectly horrid."   
  


I yawned and sat upright, snatching the red cloth from the nightstand, and dangled it in front of him. "If I sleep with loose hair, there'll be hell to pay in the morning. Or—" I considered. "—morning—whenever we wake up."  
  


"Bed it is, then?" he asked, sitting up.  
  


"I think we should."  
  


With my hair done, we nestled back under the covers. He took me in his arms, and I knew I was going to miss this sorely when we woke up—the warmth of him, the safety of his embrace. He pressed his lips between my shoulderblades and touched a spot on my upper back. I knew exactly what it was—my stomach lurched. "I appear to have overlooked something," he murmured.  
  


I sighed silently. "It's just a spot. I have loads of them."  
  


"Not this. It has the look of a burn. The mark of a stray ember, perhaps, unattended to in the throes of a fireside encounter. . ."  
  


"Maybe," I lied. "I'm going to put out the light." I went up on my elbow and dimmed the oil lamp, and bundled myself in his arms again just as quickly as I could. I closed my eyes and imagined we were in the royal quarters of the palace of the Forbidden City: that we had nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do; that we were going to peel ourselves out of bed not a minute before noon, and spend the day lounging around with gilded goblets of wine in our hands, and do it all again the next day. Useless thoughts. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear them out of my head. "Good night," I whispered.  
  


He smiled against my neck. "Good night, Safiya."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it made me so sad that there was no possible way to have a 'men get pegged' moment here (unless safiya was carrying the strap since the merryweather, which would be impressive in itself). however i'm going to write a standalone epilogue chapter for that exact purpose. it's gonna happen


	21. Day 49

Well. We were right to dread waking up. A handful of hours later, Malady was already pounding at our door with a vengeance, and we scrambled to get dressed and come up to the top deck before she took us out of the Hall of Echoes. The prow of the ship seemed to cut through the fabric of the sky, and we hovered in the air for an endless moment. I could see the city in the distance, each building the size of a rice grain—and then we plunged, ship and all, several hundred feet—I went flying across the deck—and landed hard in the water, so hard it felt like stone. We wrecked on the coast of Arx; Malady shooed us away, she'd worry about the ship and we'd turn our eyes on Dallis.  
  


On the outskirts of the city, several pockets of travelers had set up a sort of shanty town. I elbowed Ifan. "Is it near Lucian's Day?"  
  


He frowned and blew out a breath, considering. "Pff. I couldn't even tell you what month this is. Maybe."  
  


"Well, it—" I paused to think. "They loaded us onto that ship—the Merryweather? It was high summer then, and that was a bit less than two months ago."  
  


"Two _months?_ Rhalic's scummy beard. Feels like years. But look." Ifan jutted his chin in the direction of a half-raised tent. Huddled beneath it was a colourful group of people in ragged clothing or nursing fresh injuries. "I'd guess refugees before I guessed pilgrims."  
  


"Let's find out," I said, and walked up to them. At their head was an old man with dark-brown skin and thin hair that hung about him like a stark grey cloud. "Good day," I told him, stiffly. "Are you all visiting the city for Lucian's Day?"  
  


Half of the group ignored me. One or two gave me wide-eyed looks; the old man only glared. I repeated my question in Elvish, but it wasn't until I asked it a third time, in Mezdi, that his eyes brightened with understanding.  
  


" _We have made a very perilous journey,_ " he croaked, " _and now we are laid low by creatures from the blackest hell. If you are wise, girl, you'll turn back the way you came._ "  
  


I didn't bother telling him about all the reasons why I couldn't go back. Instead, I frowned. " _Have they come here?_ "  
  


The old man cackled, a sound like dry, splintery wood. " _Lucian's city is gone to rot, girl. They are here in the harbour, in the stables. They won't let us in the city because the gates are blocked with them. Turn back, I say._ "  
  


I folded my arms, trying not to panic. " _. . .thank you for your concern. Er—I see some of your group are injured. I'm a healer—will you let me help?_ "  
  


They would. I reordered a few shattered bones the best I could, cleaned and closed cuts and bites—the old man was missing a huge chunk of his forearm. The arm looked like it had been torn with teeth, gnawed nearly to the bone. I healed the skin, but I can't create flesh where there isn't any.  
  


" _Look after yourself, if you must go in,_ " said the old man, patting my hand.  
  


I thanked him and went back to the others, a little ill from the strain of healing. "What's the word?" asked Ifan.  
  


"They're both. Pilgrims and refugees," I said. "Where's—oh." I'd been looking for the Red Prince, but I found him as I was speaking, chatting in the distance with a lizard in ornate robes; a flashy sort, clearly fresh from the Empire. "Er, I think we need to get to the gates," I went on. "The Voidwoken are everywhere and the people can't get inside the city."  
  


So we pushed toward the gates, where a few Paladins on watch warned us away—we ignored the warning, of course, and dispatched the biggest Voidwoken I'd ever seen, a huge beast with cinder-skin, a fire-spitter. I saw to our burns and the injuries of the Paladins—the ones that had survived—before we went inside the city proper.  
  


I was dreading the worst, and I very nearly got it. The corpses were piled up in the main street— _piled up_ , I mean, hundreds of them, unrecognisable. The _smell._ It felt like a punch. I staggered and vomited into a gutter. When the haze of tears cleared, who did I see but Ramn Oak at the center of the destruction, standing on shaky legs behind a large white canvas.  
  


I spat the last bile onto the cobble. "Ram," I called, coming closer.  
  


He looked up, and I startled—he was white as milk, and his eyes were unfocused. "Safiya?" he asked. "What—? Didn't they pick you up for a Sourcerer?"  
  


"I came back," I said, pursing my lips so I wouldn't be sick again.   
  


"Ula's not with you?" he asked, looking past me. "She's always with you."  
  


"Ula—" I sighed. I know you were friends with him, but I still can't stick him. What is he now, twenty? Twenty-two? And he can barely act twelve. I absolutely wasn't going to cry in front of him. "No, she's not with me. Er—" I changed the subject, and gestured at Ifan and the others. "I've been travelling with a few people. This is Ifan, Sebille, and—the Red Prince."  
  


"Charmed," murmured Ram, keeping his eyes at his canvas all the while.   
  


"Er," I said, "and this is Ramn Oak. He's. . ." I tried to come up with the words. I couldn't find any that were kind.  
  


"He's the best painter in this godforsaken city," said Ram for me. "This will be my Ascension, Safiya. Your l—little sketches are no more than kindling. _This_ is real—this is _important._ "  
  


"Ram, what are you painting?" I asked, uneasy.  
  


" _Don't_ call me Ram. Come look."  
  


I did, and I forgot to breathe for a second. I've seen Oak's Ascension; I saw it before he even donated it to the Divine Order. This was nothing like that, none of the life and none of the colour, but it was still blood and Source, dancing across a canvas. It was the main street, with the corpses about; Paladins barring the doors, wounded townspeople crawling on the cobblestone. It turned my stomach, it was so red.   
  


"Is this what's been happening to the city?" I asked quietly.  
  


"I call it 'The Destruction of Arx'," he said grandly, and I understood why he was so pale.  
  


"Are you _mad?_ " I hissed, taking his arm, which, beneath a loose bandage, was oozing blood more quickly than he could streak it across the canvas. "Are you trying to go the way of—?"  
  


"If that's what it takes." Ram took a steadying breath. "I have something no apprenticeship will give you. I have my father's passion, his need to create, even to the very last drop. That's why I'm going to eclipse you, Safiya. For good."  
  


"Paint slower!" I snapped. "Or dilute it! What good is all of that if you can't even finish your piece? Ram, you'll hurt yourself!"  
  


"Clearly you don't understand how urgent this is. I have to capture what's happened here, or what sort of an artist am I?"  
  


I tugged my sleeve up past my elbow. "Borrow some of mine."  
  


He looked up for the first time, looked straight at me, and his pale eyes were wide with outrage. "So you can put your fingerprints all over my hard work? Over—my—dead—body."  
  


"Ram, for gods' sakes—" I took him by the shoulders; he shook himself loose.  
  


"This isn't your business," he said coldly. "You can't tamper with my work just because you envy me."  
  


I bit my tongue. I didn't know what else I could say or do, save dragging him home, kicking and screaming.  
  


The Red Prince cleared his throat and looked over Ram's shoulder at the painting. "Fascinating," he said. "What shoddy brushwork for a son of Hubert Oak."  
  


Ram whirled around, a faint colour rising to his sickly white face. " _What?_ "  
  


"Oh, did I speak my thought aloud?" The Prince thumbed at his chin, apparently deep in thought. "Just as well. I am looking at the work of a fool who lived and died in his father's shadow."  
  


Ram drew back his fist. The Red Prince caught it without so much as blinking. "You'll take that back, you feckless lizard!" Ram cried.  
  


"Your father painted his masterpiece at fifty or sixty, if memory serves," the Red Prince went on, utterly ignoring him. "If you die a delusional little boy and leave this infantile piece as your greatest accomplishment, you will forever be his footnote. Take another half century to become a competent painter. Die your ridiculous death then, if you wish."  
  


"You—" Ram's voice cracked. "You really think it's infantile?"  
  


"I do not see the work of a seasoned artist. I see the pompousness, the vapidity of youth. And an inferior grasp of light and shadow besides."  
  


"I—" Ram shook his head, blinking fast. "I'm not going to die," he said thickly. "I haven't even bled that much."  
  


"No?" The Red Prince put a hand on Ram's chest and shoved him—not hard, but all the same he lost his footing and went barrelling into me. It was all I could do to catch him without tumbling to the ground as well. When he stood up, he couldn't get his balance back. I had to hold on to him as he careened and clutched at his head.  
  


"Ram—" I began.  
  


"'m fine," he said, and retched.  
  


"There is no dignity in this death, and less still if your sole bequest is _this,_ " said the Red Prince, eyeing the painting with disdain.  
  


"Let me take you home so you can have a lie down," I said, as gently as I could.  
  


"Fine—fine," said Ram bitterly. "And I'll throw out the fucking painting."  
  


"Don't," I suggested. "Stow it away with all the other old things. Maybe you can revisit it."  
  


Ram made a dismissive motion with his hand and leaned more heavily into my side. We brought him and the painting home; I could have found Hubert Oak's place blindfolded. I didn't leave until I saw that he'd eaten something.  
  


"Thank you," I told the Red Prince when we were out of the house. "Thank you. I think that boy's a prat, but I don't want him hurt."  
  


"So I gathered," he half-smiled. "You're quite welcome."  
  


"Time to speak to the Divine Order, perhaps?" said Sebille. "Dear sweet Dallis is their leader, after all."  
  


"Yeah," said Ifan. "I think we passed the Paladins' barracks. Lot of them camped out in the courtyard."  
  


It turned out that the head of the Paladins was holding a trial for a woman under his command. A deserter, I think. The leader, lord Kemm, was a big barrel-chested man with a straw-coloured beard, and he had his sword drawn already. He intended to execute her on the spot—the woman's poor wife was in hysterics nearby. When we broached the courtyard, she called to us in a teary voice and begged us to stop the commander's blade. 

Can you blame me for thinking of you?  
  


My legs went faster than my mind. Lord Kemm was ordering the rogue paladin to take a knee when I ran into the thick of the crowd and squawked "Stop!"  
  


Kemm turned his head to look at me. His gaze was perfectly calm—he emanated confidence: that he had every right to be here, and to do what he was doing; and that I didn't.  
  


"I—I—" I stammered.  
  


"What a lovely public ceremony," said Sebille lightly. "What has this woman done to deserve the honour?"  
  


"This is Paladin business," said Kemm. "Paladin DeSelby is under my command, and as such, she will face the consequences for disobeying orders."  
  


"And what of the trial? Where are the witnesses?" asked the Red Prince.  
  


"Enough." Kemm curled his lip.  
  


"This is how you deal with insubordination?" demanded Ifan. "Public execution without a fair trial? You'll have hundreds more like her if you treat your people that way."  
  


Kemm's hand wavered. He narrowed his eyes at Ifan, trying to find out something. "You are an outsider. I do not expect your understanding. I must act with the strength of Divine Lucian, and cut off the head of the snake, here and now."  
  


The Red Prince scoffed. "The strength of Lucian? Lucian, who caused untold misery in refusing to kill his son not once, but—"  
  


Ifan held up a hand. " _Lucian_ would have the strength to show mercy. A decent commander understands that his people aren't made of stone—they're flesh and blood, and sometimes they make mistakes. You'll get more loyalty out of them if you show them mercy than with displays like this. _Lucian_ understood that, Lord Kemm. Do you?"  
  


While Kemm considered, the courtyard was deathly quiet except for the ragged sobs of the paladin's wife. Finally he sighed and pressed three fingers to his temple. "Lock her in the barracks," he said, looking in turn at two of his men. When he sheathed his sword, and the other paladins led DeSelby away, the wife dropped to her knees. She fell onto Ifan when we approached her again, holding him about the neck and thanking him over and over and over.  
  


"I know Kemm, and I know his kind," muttered Ifan on our way to the tavern. "Everything in the name of the Divine. Was the same way myself, once."  
  


"You saved a woman's life," I pointed out.  
  


"There's teachings enough of Lucian's that would have told him to kill her. None of it matters."  
  


"Darling," said Sebille, squeezing his shoulder, "you sound like you're dying for a drink."  
  


"You know what I'd kill for?" he pondered, finally cracking a smile. "Something strong, cheap, and fucking terrible. Proper rotgut."  
  


"This isn't really the sort of place to get. . .rotgut," I said carefully.  
  


"I find it unfathomable," said the Red Prince, "that—in the presence of ample drink which _doesn't_ taste like punishment—you would ever choose something called 'rotgut'."  
  


"If you don't get it, you don't get it," shrugged Ifan, sharing a look with Sebille.  
  


"Well—" I was still trying to help. "Maybe if you ask for the cheapest brandy in the house, you—"  
  


"Oh, sweetest, no," Sebille interrupted me. "There's one way, and only one way to do it right. You bloody your face, throw a handful of filthy coppers onto the counter and _demand_ they give you something for it. Then, they'll give you the scrapings of the still." She flourished her hands. "Rotgut."  
  


"It's not a hovel," I said, a little shrilly. "It's a nice place. They'll throw you out if you try that. We can _go_ to a hovel if you want something that might make you _blind._ "  
  


"Hey—hey." Ifan held up his hands, frowning slightly at me. "We'll get something decent. We have a bit of spare coin. For now."  
  


Sheepishly, I fiddled with the sleeve of my robe. "They have an excellent rice wine. It's—stronger than you'd think. But it tastes. . .not like punishment."  
  


"See? Perfect. Rice wine all around," declared Ifan.  
  


"Far be it from me to ruin the proceedings," began the Red Prince. "Although: is it not our priority to locate the woman who—if I may remind you—holds in her hands the powers of the gods combined?"  
  


"The sun's setting," I said. "We should get some rest, and then go on searching."  
  


"Start searching, I suppose you mean."  
  


"I think there's a pretty good chance the Paladins are hiding her," put in Ifan. "The Divine Order will cover for its own."  
  


"Then we should speak to Kemm," I said.  
  


Ifan toyed with his beard. "Or the paladin he locked up. Maybe she had a good reason for turning tail."  
  


"Wonderful! We have a plan for tomorrow, and nothing else needs to come between me and several bottles of rice wine," chirped Sebille. "Of course, your _Majesty,_ " she added, "you could always charter a room if you'd like to abstain."  
  


"I might at that," he said sourly.   
  


But he didn't. It's the sort of place that lures you in: warm, bright and packed with people. The server (—they got a new one since you've been away, a skinny fellow with big ears who stares just a bit too much for my liking—) set two fragrant bottles of rice wine in front of us. Sebille caught sight of a dartboard and challenged Ifan to a match, grabbing one of the bottles as they went.  
  


"I've had better wine," smirked the Red Prince.  
  


I grinned, thinking back. "We—er. . ." My smile fell away as quickly as it had come. "We need to find the embassy of the Empire. Well—I mean, I know that quarter, but we had ought to find the Princess."  
  


"I suppose we had ou—" He covered his mouth. "—we _ought_ to."  
  


"Mm!" I swallowed my mouthful of wine. "Too late! 'Had ought'! I'm rubbing off on you!"  
  


"For better or worse. You know, I'm not half so eager to visit the embassy as I was."  
  


"Are you still—?" I folded my hands, touching the spot where my finger used to be. "Is your plan still the same?"  
  


"It must be. Nothing has come along to change it."  
  


"Well, I think. . ." I held my breath, running my finger along the rim of my glass. "I wonder, does it matter all that much what happens when you're long gone? If the dragons do make trouble at some point, years and years down the line. . .what's that to you?"  
  


He narrowed his eyes. "What an ugly proposition from the lips of one like you."  
  


"'One like me'?"  
  


"One so recklessly, foolishly selfless. A healer to her core, I daresay. Do you recall running into a sinking, infested ship, armed with a mop, for the love of a handful of strangers? For gods' sakes, we've intervened to save two lives, at your behest, in the last hour." He tapped his claws on the table, inviting me to argue. I didn't. "It vexes me, then," he went on, "that you should be in favour of the option which will—oh, bring the world to the brink of annihilation? Bring about death and misery the likes of which Lucian could only dream of?"  
  


"I want you to be happy," I said, shrugged fiercely, and emptied my glass.  
  


"Ah," he said, much softer. "What a terrible shame for you."  
  


I gripped my glass tighter.  
  


"You'll shatter it," he warned.  
  


Forcing myself to breathe, I let go of the glass and laid my hand flat on the table. He placed his hand in mine.   
  


"I keep trying to think of a way," I said.   
  


"To vouchsafe my happiness? Even if I chose to let the dragons do as they would, and leave the war and death to my children's children, I would hardly be _happy_ in my cowardice. In the painful knowledge that my Empire and its people were only transitory."  
  


"But your other option is. . ." I bit my tongue. I was tired of trailing off. "Your other option is to murder Sadha and your children. That's your other option."  
  


"Which is why," he said evenly, running his thumb over the back of my hand, "the question of my happiness is a moot point."  
  


"I don't see how that's fair."  
  


"There are no gods left to preside over fairness. Safiya, the burden is on my shoulders. You cannot lift it, and neither is it in your power to ease it."  
  


"I can bloody well try," I said, childishly.  
  


"And I am asking that you don't. Please."  
  


He looked me in the eye.  
  


I sighed and stood up. "I'm going to buy our rooms, I think."  
  


"It hardly feels like a night for revelry, does it?" he agreed.  
  


So we paid for the night's board, left the key to the other room with Sebille, and went to bed. Isn't it funny that all I wanted for months was to come back to Arx—and now that I'm here, everything is fucked?  
  


I love you. And I know you want me to tell Ram what happened to you. I will, as soon as I get the chance. 

Saf


	22. Day 50

Ifan was right about the Paladins—about Kemm having something to hide. Actually, Kemm seems to have been hiding an awful lot of somethings.   
  


Probably it was for the best that we didn't get utterly pissed the night before, given the fight we got into. It was a crisp autumn day, bright and cold. No one kept us out of the Paladins' barracks.   
  


Paladin DeSelby was loose-haired and dressed in plain clothes. She seemed to be meditating when we came upon her cell. "Have you Lord Kemm's permission to be here?" she asked calmly.  
  


"No," I said.  
  


"Then I won't keep you longer than necessary." DeSelby lowered her voice. "Something dark has taken hold of our commander. He isn't himself."  
  


"He's not normally like this?" asked Ifan. "Doesn't seem any different to me."  
  


"He's become a zealot. He's blind to reason. Listen," DeSelby hissed. "Lord Kemm's estate has a sizeable garden. Hidden in that garden is the entrance to his vault. Go. Don't loiter and arouse suspicion."  
  


We hurried out of the barracks.   
  


Sebille played with a strand of her hair. "If Lord Kemm's little mood swings and his secret vault _don't_ have something to do with Dallis, why, I'll eat my right arm."  
  


"Wait," I said, "has anyone ever tried eating their own flesh? You'd be seeing your own memories. Or would it be like nothing happened?"  
  


"Don't be morbid, Saf," Ifan grinned. "No one needs to eat any arms. Kemm knows something."  
  


"Then our next obstacle will be to scour the garden for this entrance without alerting the household," said the Red Prince.  
  


"Kemm isn't at home now," Sebille pointed out. "He's hard at work. Writing his little reports. Holding false trials for his underlings."  
  


"His wife is at home," I said. "What I hear about Lady Kemm is that she'll invite almost anyone over for tea. The only thing you need to do is walk inside and strike up a conversation."  
  


The Red Prince tapped his chin. "An unwise practice, for a noblewoman who values her life."  
  


"We'll make it work for us," said Ifan. "One of us can. . .strike up a conversation with Lady Kemm, and the others can search the garden."  
  


"I'll do it," I said. "If that's all right. You won't miss me in a fight."  
  


"We'll miss you the moment we start to bleed, sweetling," said Sebille, briefly touching my arm. "But we'll have to make do."  
  


"Even if you happen to charm every person in the house," the Red Prince told me, "there are bound to be gardeners about."  
  


"That's easy," said Sebille. "With any luck, our Lord commander has a lovely deep crocodile pit."  
  


Ifan sighed. "'That's not going to fool anyone. New staff will come and discover—"  
  


She smiled at him. "It'll be days. Or weeks. This will all be over before then, don't you reckon?"  
  


I rubbed the back of my neck. There was a new, anxious weight in my stomach, like a stone.  
  


Kemm's mansion was in the southeastern end of the city. We passed by the quarter where most of the elves in the city live; the smallish, drab houses where you and I grew up. I thought of my dad—I thought I should go and see him, see if he hadn't died. (Nothing lost if he had, of course, but I thought I should go.)  
  


But I shook the thought off, and instead I made a mental list of pleasant topics I could bring up to Lady Kemm. I'd passed the estate many times: an imposing mansion built out of dark, heavy wood. Ifan and the others went for the garden while I tapped the massive steel knocker against the door. Lady Kemm's maid came to the door and saw me inside. I suppose I was a strange sight, in my questionably-stained robes, carrying a staff in the middle of a civilised city. Missing a finger. With a broken nose healing just a touch crooked.  
  


"Good day," said a well-dressed older woman, who had been milling restlessly about the main hall until she saw me come in. "I'm afraid I've had to suspend my weekly fêtes, my dear, given the unrest in the city. My Arx," she fretted.  
  


"Oh, I—I haven't come to fête, my lady," I hesitated. "My name is—Afra, daughter of Za—er—daughter of Karima, and. . .my friend Ulara says you're an, er, excellent conversationalist."  
  


"Ulara? Miss Waewenys, the actress?" Lady Kemm clasped her hands. "Dear, sweet girl. I was worried she had forgotten about me. How is she doing?"  
  


I grit my teeth. "Very well, madam. She's, ah, touring at the moment, but she sent me in her place. She—she thought you might like some quiet company in these tumultuous times, my lady."  
  


"Oh, dearest heart, always so considerate," cooed Lady Kemm. I felt acutely guilty. "Of course, of course. It would be my pleasure to share my afternoon tea with you, miss—oh, I do beg your pardon—"  
  


"Af—Afra," I managed. "Please, there's no need to apologise. It isn't a common name, after all."  
  


"Oh, it's positively musical, my dear. Where have you come from?"  
  


"Er—I've lived in Arx all my life, madam."  
  


"Yes, but—originally? Surely you aren't. . .of Eastern stock, my dear, if you take my meaning."  
  


I swallowed both my pride and the sharp remark I would have made. "Actually, my mother is from the deserts of Mezd. My father is an elf."  
  


"Ah, of course, your darling little ears. How exotic! I only wish I was half so interesting, sweetheart."  
  


"Thank you," I said, biting hard into my tongue. I looked past her through the far window and thought I saw the others wading through the tall grass, weaving between sprays of colourful flowers. "Er—I'm sorry to ask, Lady Kemm, but is there any chance we could dim the daylight a bit? I've been having trouble with my head, and the light, it—"  
  


"Oh, my dear. Of course." Lady Kemm snapped her fingers and the maid ran in from the other room. "Curtains," she said shortly, and the maid immediately drew the velvet curtains, obscuring the view of the garden.  
  


Lady Kemm and I chatted about you, about your last play, about her tasteful furnishings, about her husband, about Lucian, and every other bloody thing I could think of, for a couple of painful hours, and when I was ready to bash my own skull in, I thanked her for the lovely afternoon and excused myself.  
  


As the sun peaked in the sky, I realised we hadn't agreed on a meeting place. At a guess, I headed for the same tavern we'd been to the night before, cutting through the elven quarter again on my way. I was in front of my father's house when someone touched my shoulder. The Red Prince.  
  


I hugged him. "Thank the gods you're all right."  
  


He hugged me back tightly for a moment and then held me at arm's length. "I might say the same to you, if only the gods had any power left over us."  
  


All I did was have a weak cup of tea with a condescending old woman, I thought. Of course I'd be all right. "Are you all in the tavern from yesterday? I was on my way there."  
  


"Yes. You'll want to hear our findings."  
  


"Oh—I know my way there. I wanted to make a stop."  
  


The Red Prince eyed me, then turned his gaze on the house in front of us. "Your former quarters."  
  


"No," I said, and chewed my lip. There was no real reason to lie. "It's my father's house. I was just going to make certain he hasn't been eaten by Voidwoken, and then go on my way."  
  


"Heartwarming."  
  


"He's not really a heartwarming man," I said. "I'll catch up with you, unless," I dug my thumbnail into my palm. "Unless you want to stay. It won't take long."  
  


He nodded to me. "Go on."  
  


I knocked on the door, and after a lot of rattling, and several sets of lazy footsteps, my father came to the door, as bony and sallow as he always was, his eyes dark and sleepless. And always the long, thin bitter-leaf cigarette poised between his lips. The smell of bitter-leaf still makes me gag. Makes me think of sweat and terror.  
  


He tapped the ash from the cigarette and looked me over as if looking at me was a backbreaking, soulcrushing chore. "We don't have any room for you," he said simply. "Find an inn."  
  


My mouth worked aimlessly. "What?" I forced out.  
  


My father sighed. "They take your house, Sourcerer. I do not turn you in, but we have no room for you here." He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed it squarely at the Red Prince. "Is this your friend from the whorehouse?"  
  


The Prince took a step. I touched his hand, _it's all right_. "No," I said calmly. "Listen, I—I heard there had been attacks on the city. I only came here to see whether you and Rhianu and the little ones are OK."  
  


"Fine, Safiya. Always fine." He blinked slowly. His eyes were pink and rheumy from the smoke.  
  


I nodded. "Good. That's good, then." He started to close the door, and I rattled on: "Is—er, is there anything, you know, anything I can do for you?"  
  


He blew out his mouthful of smoke and laughed as he closed the door on me.  
  


"Well," I said, shrugging one shoulder. "Sorry about that. Let's get going."  
  


"Is he always so remarkably pleasant," asked the Red Prince as we walked, "or did we happen to meet him on a good day?"  
  


"He could be worse," I said lightly.  
  


"I fail to see how."  
  


"You'll have to trust me." I smiled. The old burn on my shoulderblade was prickling.  
  


We kept a brisk pace on the way back to the tavern.   
  


"Saf!" called Ifan. The place was nearly empty at midday, and he and Sebille were huddled at a table near the back. "Hey," he said, when we'd gotten close. "Did you tell her what we found?"  
  


"What did you find?" I asked.  
  


"Two panels of the Ascension," said Sebille smugly.  
  


I made a sound like a squeak and clapped my hand over my mouth. " _What?_ The originals? Are you sure? What is the Ascension doing out of the Cathedral?"  
  


"They were the real thing. Could feel the Source on them," said Ifan. "There's more to the vault. We need the last panel of the painting to get through."  
  


"That's insane," I said, and sat down. "Where would we find a piece of the original triptych?"  
  


"Was hoping you'd have an idea."  
  


"I don't," I said, sitting down. "Maybe Ram's got it? But—why would the Cathedral give away the _Ascension?_ "  
  


"Sweetest, no one was doing any giving away," said Sebille. "That man is a magpie. Shiny things and pretty paintings from one wall to the other."  
  


"Where does he get the bloody nerve to steal from the Cathedral?" I snapped.  
  


Ifan cocked his head and frowned at me. "I didn't know you were so devout."  
  


"I'm not." I smoothed my hair with both hands. "I just don't think Hubert Oak spent twelve years on that piece so some Paladin could throw it in his cellar to molder. You're _sure_ it wasn't a forgery?"  
  


"Even if it was a fake, that doesn't change the fact that we need the missing panel."  
  


I spread my hands out on the table. "Well—I don't have any better ideas than Ram. He's still living in his father's old place. He's sitting on enough material for an Oak museum."  
  


"OK," said Ifan. "We'll find him."  
  


On our way to Ram's home, we passed a few exceptionally dirty-faced children. They seemed to be playing a game in the abandoned street. We ignored them—until one of them cut Ifan's purse and ran away, cackling. Sebille was the first to take off running, and easily the fastest of us, but the children disappeared through alley after alley. I heard the heavy _thunk_ of a metal lid, and when we caught up to Sebille, she was standing with her arms folded in front of a manhole.  
  


"For fuck's sake," panted Ifan. "Thieving little mite."  
  


I wrinkled my nose. "D'you think they live down there?"  
  


"Let's find out," said Sebille brightly, and clambered down the shaft into the sewers.  
  


"How much were you carrying?" I asked Ifan.  
  


"Couple hundred. Come on," he said, squaring his shoulders, "I've done worse for less."  
  


The Red Prince watched him descend, shaking his head. "I thought I had fallen as far as one might fall. Here now the ladder to a new, undiscovered low."  
  


I grinned and gestured toward the entrance. "After you, your Majesty."  
  


I wasn't smiling when I came down. I tried to stopper my nose at first, but after so many minutes of gagging and swallowing bile, my sense of smell was paralysed.  
  


"Bloody hell," said Ifan. "There's a whole city down here."  
  


"There's a perfectly serviceable city up there," complained the Red Prince. "One that doesn't smell of excrement. For the most part."  
  


"These kids live down here?" I pulled my robe around me. "They picked a sewer over their—their homes and their families?"  
  


Ifan pursed his lips. "You honestly think this lot have homes and families?"  
  


"Oh."  
  


Strange music floated around, like someone playing the piano with huge, clumsy fingers. We followed the sound and found the kids' hideout: a massive stone enclosure full of treasures and—I couldn't believe my eyes—the final panel of the Ascension.  
  


In the corner, a troll was playing the piano. In the next room, a kid was telling jokes to—another troll. A third and fourth stood guard against the far wall. I looked uneasily at the others, heart pounding.  
  


"Hey!" called a little girl with scruffy black hair. She was wearing a large hat that would have been fashionable on an old wealthy woman. "You're not s'posed to be in here! This is our spot. No smelly adults allowed!"  
  


"Gods, I hate children," said Sebille under her breath.  
  


"You forfeited the right to refer to people as 'smelly' when you installed yourselves in a sewer," the Red Prince told the girl.  
  


She blinked at him and then blew a fat raspberry. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.  
  


"Nice. . .trolls," said Ifan slowly. "Are they your friends?"  
  


"Yep," said the girl, adjusting her hat, "and they'll EAT you if I say so, so get out!"  
  


I took a slow, cautious step, with both my palms raised. "Hello," I said, and stuck out my hand. "My name is Safiya. What's yours?"  
  


She looked at my hand and then batted it away. "Ew! You haven't got a finger!"  
  


"Want to shake the other one?" I said. Her rejection was oddly hurtful. "I promise I've got all five on this one."  
  


Reluctantly, she put her small, grimy hand in mine and we shook. "I'm Big Tomorrah," she said, lifting her chin to look down her nose at me, despite being half my height.  
  


"Nice to meet you, Big Tomorrah. I think that painting is very pretty. Can I have a look?"  
  


"You better not put your dirty hands on it," growled Big Tomorrah.  
  


"You can feed me to your trolls if I touch it. OK?"  
  


She didn't protest. I walked forward and knelt in front of the painting. It was the Ascension, no doubt. I'd have recognized Oak's work anywhere.   
  


"Is there anything I could give you for this painting, Big Tomorrah?" I asked her.  
  


"Five thousand pieces," she said smoothly.  
  


I breathed in. "It's really important that I have this painting."  
  


"That's what they all say."  
  


"OK. . .want to see what's so amazing about it?" I snapped my fingers, calling up just a bit of Source, and the painting came alive. The fire flickered, tiny painted bolts of lightning struck from the sky, and the people scattered, running to either end of the painting, huddling in the corners.  
  


" _Wow,_ " said Big Tomorrah, and scratched at a rash on her cheek as she pondered. "OK. Ten thousand."  
  


" _What?_ "  
  


"It's a paintin' what moves, stupid! You think I'm going to give it away?"  
  


Oh, I wanted to toss her into the water. I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought of her negotiating. Instead I counted to ten and then said: "OK, well, if that's your price, that's your price. Is it all right if I come back later with the money?"  
  


She cackled. "Come back when you stop being poor. Which is never." All the other kids laughed uproariously.  
  


We filed out, feeling the odd, lopsided shame of being insulted by small children.  
  


"Oh, well," said Sebille, drawing her daggers.  
  


"Don't act a fool," said the Red Prince. "We can't hope to take on four trolls—at least not without damaging the painting in the flurry."  
  


"And even if we _could,_ " said Ifan, alarmed, "we aren't going to risk hurting children unless it's absolutely our only option."  
  


"Isn't it?" asked Sebille. "Where and when are we going to find _ten thousand_ pieces?"  
  


"We could take out a loan," I said slowly. "There's a woman in town that does them."  
  


"What a distinctly. . .sensible solution," said the Red Prince suspiciously.  
  


"She charges something ridiculous on her loans," I went on. "And they say she—she always gets her money back."  
  


So we sputtered out of the sewers again and searched the business district for the lender. It was a small, simple building, and the front office was empty except for a desk, behind which a wizened old woman was browsing her records.  
  


I knocked gently on the wall. "Er, Sanguinia Tell?"  
  


She made no sign that she had heard me. I approached her desk. "Madam Tell?" I repeated.  
  


"Yes, yes," she said brusquely. "Name?"  
  


I shot a glance behind me and motioned with my head for the others to come. "Afra bin-Karima," I said to Madam Tell.  
  


"Excellent," said the old woman, searching for a fresh page and jotting something down on it. "And your real name?"  
  


"I was hoping—what?"  
  


"Your real name, daughter of Zayna."  
  


I froze. ". . .I don't know what you're talking about. My mother is Karima."  
  


"Then why have you the face of my old friend, Zayna?" She stabbed her quill into the back of my hand. I cried out.  
  


"What, exactly," demanded the Red Prince, starting forward, "is your purpose in attacking your clients?"  
  


"Settle down," said Madam Tell, and put the end of the bloodied quill in her mouth. "You see!" she said triumphantly. "You are Zayna's girl. Now if you want to tell me another lie, this will be a very short-lived partnership. Your _name._ "  
  


"Safiya," I said, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as I healed my punctured hand. "Madam Tell, I—"  
  


"How much?"  
  


". . .Ten thousand."  
  


"Sensible. I can offer you a longer grace period if your debt is relatively small. You know the terms?"  
  


"I—yes? No."  
  


"You must return double my investment to me, before the agreed-upon deadline. There are no extensions. I will collect my due, one way or another."  
  


I crossed my arms. "Madam Tell, how do you know my mother?"  
  


"Vivacious woman. Good for the soul. She took out a loan ten times the size of yours."  
  


Her expression was unreadable as she stared at me over the rim of her reading glasses. I had trouble breathing. "Ah. When was this?"  
  


"Oh, eleven years, four months and nineteen days ago? Nineteen, twenty, I would have to consult my ledger."  
  


"How long did you give her?"  
  


"Five years precisely. An exceedingly generous deadline for the amount she took, but I liked her. Good company."  
  


"All right," I said. "What are the terms of my loan, then?"  
  


"As I said. If I lend you ten thousand, I want twenty thousand within. . .shall we say, two years. I am much more exacting with my deadlines lately, but consider this a favour to your late mother."  
  


"All right," I repeated, slowly. I caught Ifan's eye. He shrugged and glanced distrustfully at the old woman.  
  


"There is one more matter," said Madam Tell. "I require a measure of your blood. A piece of insurance for me."  
  


"Blood? What do you need my blood for?"   
  


"Put it this way, daughter of Zayna. I _will_ collect my debt two years from this day. I would, of course, prefer the gold. But if you force my hand, I must take something more."  
  


"Will you kill me?" I asked, in a raw voice. "Will you—will you stop my heart? Like you—"  
  


"Oh, not likely. When I took what I was owed from Zayna, I did so quickly and painlessly. As a favour."  
  


"As a favour." My hands were numb.  
  


"That's what I said. Normally, however, the death is not at all pleasant, or quick. Child," she said, seeing my expression, "it was business. She made the deal, she knew the consequences."  
  


I took a few deep breaths, feeling the same way I had when I first found out what had happened to you—hard and indestructible, a statue. "OK," I said. "Where do I sign?"  
  


"You're not serious, darling?" Sebille reproached me.  
  


"The ink is in your veins," said Madam Tell hungrily.  
  


I closed my eyes and held out my hand. She wrapped her long, cold fingers around my wrist, and I waited for it to be over.  
  


"Stop," ordered the Red Prince. I opened my eyes.  
  


"We need to get that painting," I said, in a shaking voice.  
  


"Clearly," he said, prying the old woman's hand away from mine. "My blood for your ink," he told Madam Tell, and presented his arm to her instead.  
  


My jaw dropped. "Are you _mad?"_   
  


"I am the sanest one in this room. Twenty thousand was as petty change when I had my Empire. It will be again."  
  


"Then my contract is with you," said Madam Tell. "And you are no friend to me or mine. I cannot grant you more than one year's time."  
  


"That will be ample," said the Red Prince.  
  


Sanguinia Tell dug one of her sharp fingernails into his arm, and the blood floated, droplet by droplet, into a small bottle she had set out.  
  


When it was full, she stood up slowly and stiffly and left the room, returning with four bulging sacks of gold. "As promised," she explained, and set them down heavily on her desk. We each took one.  
  


Madam Tell nodded at the Red Prince. "Good doing business with you."  
  


"Did—" I broke in, "pardon me—did my mother tell you her plan for the money?"  
  


"Not officially. But speaking as a friend," she said unpleasantly, "it was. . .something to do with a trip abroad for her daughter. An apprenticeship for her dear little painter. She hoped to make you the next Hubert Oak," added Madam Tell, with a grotesque, sentimental smile.  
  


I nodded, working my jaw loose with my fingers so I wouldn't crack all my teeth. "Thank you."  
  


"Good day."  
  


We left.  
  


"Did you miss playing mind-games with she-demons?" asked Sebille, hefting the gold in her arms.  
  


"She isn't my type," said the Red Prince matter-of-factly. "And she plays a dull game, besides."  
  


"Wait. Demon?" I asked faintly.  
  


Sebille shot me a pitying smile. I didn't care for it. "If it wants your blood _and_ your name, sweetest, it's a demon."  
  


"We need to find the nearest entrance to the sewers," said Ifan. "We can't tramp through the city with sacks of coin in hand."  
  


He and Sebille took point as we weaved through the district, searching for another manhole.  
  


I nudged the Red Prince. "That was a stupid thing to do."  
  


"No more so than if you had signed," he said. "Short of refusing to deal with a demon in the first place, my taking out the loan was the least harebrained option, don't you think?"  
  


"Well, I—I don't know."  
  


"I do. Not only have I dealt with hundreds of her ilk, a hundred times more shrewd than she, I intend to reclaim the full extent of my wealth in far less than a year's time."  
  


"We all intend things."  
  


"It's done," he said flatly.  
  


"Well, thank you. Sorry." I shook my head. "I should have started with that. Thank you. But I—well—you had more than enough to deal with before. I worry."  
  


He smiled. "If that is your stance, consider that, next to everything else, a wayward deal with a minor demon is a drop in the ocean. Hm?"  
  


"Is that _comforting_ to you?"  
  


"I don't need comfort. I need a reason to persevere."  
  


I wanted to speak, but we'd caught up to Ifan and Sebille. Ifan went down first to take all the coin as we passed it down, and, lugging the heavy sacks of gold, we returned to Big Tomorrah's hideout.   
  


"Here," I sighed, setting mine down. "We've got your ten thousand."  
  


"Holy f—! I mean," said Big Tomorrah, clearing her throat. "I knew you'd come crawling back." Still, she looked at the money with eyes as big as saucers. "That's ten thousand?"  
  


"Yep," I said.  
  


She raked through it with her small hands, listened to it jingle. I had the distinct impression she didn't know how to count it, and I was almost certain that we could have brought just one of the four sacks and fooled her easily. I saw the pained expression on Ifan's face as he came to the same conclusion.  
  


"Well, painting's yours, I guess," said Big Tomorrah.   
  


"Thank you," I told her.  
  


"Yeah, yeah."  
  


We covered the painting with a sheet and were on the point of carrying it out when Ifan stopped in his tracks. "You all see that?"  
  


I turned my head. He was pointing at a stack of large crates, each stencilled with a white death's-head symbol.   
  


Ifan crept closer, as though the crates were living animals, liable to pounce. "Is this—Mordus' shipment?"  
  


"What do the dwarves want with Deathfog?" asked Sebille.  
  


"I don't know, but I wager whoever ordered them is down here."  
  


So we asked Big Tomorrah and her small army of trolls to watch over the painting for a few hours longer, while we explored the sewer. The farther we pushed into the foul undercity, following the trail of marked crates, the worse it got. Voidwoken lurked in the darkest halls, and some of the crates had burst or sprung leaks, and whenever we felt the telltale burning in our lungs, we had to take another route. Once we tugged our shirts over our mouths and sprinted through, and normally I'm fine with impulsive, idiot manoeuvres like that, but I refuse to ever run through Deathfog again as long as I live. However long that is.  
  


Finally we came upon a large filtering chamber that had been dressed up to look like a throne room. Justinia, the dwarven Queen, was speaking urgently to her advisor. Someone had convinced her that the Divine Order was planning an attack on the dwarven kingdom, and she and her entourage had prepared a machine that was to release Deathfog into the streets of Arx.

Ifan wasn't thrilled.  
  


The advisor unglamoured herself when we came in—she was Undead. The Queen, wringing her hands, asked _why_ —the advisor only mentioned the same shadowy 'King' we'd been hearing about since Driftwood. _God-king,_ she said this time. We took her out, and the Queen's guards, and we let the Queen go, if only so we wouldn't have a diplomatic incident on our hands.  
  


We gathered in front of the abandoned machine. Ifan took one look at the dial and pulled the lever without a word.  
  


I shrieked. "What d'you think you're—"  
  


"Relax," he said gruffly. "It's going into the sea."  
  


"Won't that. . .kill everything in the sea?" I asked. "Won't people starve?"  
  


"Deathfog's useless in water. Even if it wasn't, I'd rather a load of dead fish than a load of dead people."  
  


Sebille picked up a heavy wrench from the ground. "Not once more," she said, holding it out to Ifan.  
  


"Hold on," the Red Prince put in. "This is a remarkable piece of technology. It seems a shame to—"  
  


Ifan smashed the wrench into the face of the machine. The screech of metal and splintering glass was deafening. He smashed it again—and again. I stepped back to avoid the flying debris. When he finally dropped the wrench, breathing hard, the former machine was a crumpled, unrecognisable mess of copper and glass. There was a metal rivet on the ground by my foot. I kicked it into the filtering pit.  
  


We took back the painting. I was surprised—the sun had only just set. It felt like we'd passed an eternity under the ground.  
  


There's really no inconspicuous way to carry a six-foot-long painting through town (even if it is under a sheet), but we tried our best on the way back to the tavern. It was still relatively quiet in the early evening, and we went straight up to our rooms. Ifan and Sebille offered to keep an eye on the painting for the night, since Sebille barely sleeps.  
  


Our window was open just a crack. I took out the support, a small wooden block, and the heavy windowframe crashed shut. "Do you reckon we'll visit the Empire consulate tomorrow?" I asked.  
  


"Time allowing," said the Red Prince. "And provided we aren't apprehended or killed."  
  


"Right," I said. "Right." With the cold draught gone, I pulled my robes over my head and unlaced my boots. "Er," I began, fluffing my pillow, "what _exactly_ happens if you don't pay Madam Tell her due?"  
  


"If she were a more powerful sort, she might have her own pocket dimension wherein she collected the souls of her victims. As matters stand, she is likely sharing the haunt of a greater demon."  
  


"Oh."  
  


He turned to me. "Please don't look so troubled. I've faced worse gambits and triumphed."  
  


"It's not that." I held the pillow to my chest. "My mother's soul is with a demon. Because of my stupid apprenticeship."  
  


"And what a dry, contrived tale this would be if you had followed in her footsteps."  
  


I blinked. "What?"  
  


"You would have had that in common with the Oak boy, had I not stepped in."  
  


I flung the pillow away and got to my feet. Then I didn't know quite what to do with myself. I sat down, fuming. "I know you're not unfeeling," I said tightly. "I know better than that, so what in the bloody god-damn Void is your problem tonight?"  
  


Calmly, he stooped, and picked up the pillow, and tossed it back to me. "I believe it is our responsibility to surpass our predecessors. The Ancient Empire keeps its ancestors close, and its records immaculate—all this with the goal that no Emperor should repeat the mistakes of his fathers. By the same token, if a parent drowns in a river, her child must build a bridge."  
  


"My mother," I said slowly, "is going to spend all time as the plaything of a demon. How do you want me to bridge that?"  
  


"She played. She lost. It was her decision."  
  


"She was my _mother_ , you senseless _prick._ " I took a deep breath. "Help me understand. Are you trying to hurt me?"  
  


"Nothing of the sort. I suppose the notion of 'destiny' died with the Seven, but you have greater things before you than to throw yourself into the same river as she did."  
  


"She's my mother. Just let me be upset."  
  


He folded his arms. "I do beg your pardon—I didn't realise it was your desire to wear away your life in grieving. Is the woman not several years dead?"  
  


I shut my eyes and tried to keep in mind the gentle, considerate person I'd been with in the hold of the Lady Vengeance, just days ago. I seemed to have misplaced him. (Maybe this side—the commander, the cold-blooded strategist is the real thing, and I've been fooling myself?)   
  


"My mother is six years dead," I said. We're going to the consulate tomorrow, are we? Why don't you find me, six years from tomorrow, and tell me whether or not you're still grieving Sa—"  
  


" _E_ _nough._ "  
  


"I think so, too," I mumbled, lying down in bed and pulling the blankets around me. "Good night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw you hit the town and your abusive father makes a 5 minute appearance then disappears forever also you find out your mom's "natural death" was due to a blood pact with a demon also you have to make a pact with the same demon in order to buy a priceless painting from a 9 year old


	23. Day 51

Ula

Please come back. I don't think I can see this through. ~~We  
  
~~

OK  
  


~~We  
  
~~

I went to see Ram in the morning—I asked him for a favour, since I'd sort of saved him from bleeding out on the cobblestone. I asked him to visit with Lady Kemm.  
  


"No," he said flatly. "I can't stand the Kemms."  
  


"Please. Show her your painting, the, er, the _Destruction of Arx._ "  
  


Ram pouted. "Your lizard friend said it was shite."  
  


"What does he know?" I sighed. "Get a second opinion. Lady Kemm knows about art. And she'll feed you. You could eat better."  
  


"You're not my mother, Safiya."  
  


"Sorry." I cast a glance around the room. Hubert Oak's old study, piled high with paper sketches and half-finished underpaintings. "Will you go?"  
  


He narrowed his pale eyes at me. "What d'you care whether I have tea with some noble hag?"  
  


"I don't," I lied. "I just think you could use some company. And. . ." I racked my brain for something more, ". . .I, er, I don't think your painting was half bad. It's very. You know. Raw. Lady Kemm might even buy it off you. Her husband's a collector."  
  


"You think she would?"  
  


"Well, I don't know. You won't find out if you don't try." I poked my tongue into my cheek. "I'll walk you over there if you give me a cut."  
  


"5%. That's the most I can offer."  
  


"10%."  
  


"Fine."  
  


I covered his painting and carried it on our way to the Kemm estate. Ram had to stop for breath here and there—I didn't blame him, he'd recently lost most of his blood—but he shooed me away and plucked the painting out of my hands before he touched the knocker. I waited a few minutes, and then crept into the garden, where the others were waiting.  
  


Like Ifan had said, the final panel of the Ascension was the key to a hidden section of the vault—Kemm kept a shrine to the God King. A stone plinth with a skeletal statue on top, carved out of gleaming black stone. It spoke to us, seeping into our minds the way a spirit does when it shares a memory. He told us he wouldn't harm us if we gave up our search for Divinity. I very nearly lost my nerve.  
  


You know what else Kemm was keeping? A high priest of the Cathedral of the Divine, in chains of Source so blue it hurt my eyes. Three spirits were linked with his, standing in a mute triangle around the wretched priest as he screamed and screamed.  
  


The Red Prince was the first to understand—and the first to act. He Purged one of the spirits—or—took all of its Source, anyway—consumed it. The priest roared louder. There was a cold spot in the room where the essence of a person had been and now was gone.  
  


I ran to the corner of the room. I wasn't going to be part of this. This was worse than murder—destroying a person forever, all their thoughts and memories, so they could never exist again.   
  


Sebille took care of the next spirit. She swayed on her feet when it was done. "Black Ring," she said, dazedly, and Ifan, who had looked ill, nodded and took a deep breath before consuming the final spirit. That was my luck; three of them, and four of us.  
  


The priest gasped like a stranded fish when the last binding fell away, and as he convulsed on the ground, Kemm and a few of his men burst in—not paladins with him, but Black Ring. He and Ifan argued—I didn't hear much of it, I had scurried over to the injured priest and was tending to him. (Or at least tried to, but whatever they'd done to him hadn't left a mark.) I heard the name of the God King.  
  


Kemm drew his sword and he and his Black Ring mages closed in on us. Panicking, I drew up a barrier of Source to protect the priest and me.

There's a reason why we avoided fighting the Black Ring on the Nameless Isle. They have the most awful magic. Blood rain and raising corpses and summoning unimaginable creatures. I felt as if the fight went on for hours—Kemm seemed to have an endless reserve of strength, even after Ifan had put a bolt in the forehead of one of his mages and Sebille had cut the throat of the other. He hit hard, and he had magic—pyromancy; Kemm and the Red Prince fought like mirror images. But we outnumbered him, and even if he was formidable, he was still a mortal person. He bled and tired and stumbled. He disarmed the Red Prince, and was about to bring down his heavy greatsword when I slid my staff across the blood-slick floor; the Red Prince grabbed for it and jabbed the blunt end into Kemm's windpipe. He reeled, gasping, and the Prince got up and swept Kemm's feet out from under him, and bludgeoned his head in with the heavy staff. It took five blows.  
  


I swallowed the vomit that was rising in my throat. "Are you all right, sir?" I asked the priest, now that it was quiet. He mumbled something and put his hand on my shoulder; I helped him stand up.  
  


"Who are you?" demanded the Red Prince, hefting the bloodied staff over his shoulder. "And why has Kemm held you here?"  
  


"I am Arhu," said the priest. I'd never heard anyone so exhausted. He closed his eyes. "Are you Godwoken?"  
  


"We are," said Ifan.  
  


Arhu touched his forehead, maybe working away an ache. "That answers your other question," he sighed. "Linder Kemm was an agent of the Void. It is in his interest, and that of his so-called king, that no new Divine ascends."  
  


"And why should he capture you, then?" prodded the Red Prince.  
  


"He wished to enter the tomb of Lucian. But the late Divine placed many safeguards, the first being the Path of Blood. I know of a way around some of them—Kemm wanted to wring the knowledge out of me."  
  


"If the God King wants into Lucian's tomb, then that's where we need to go," said Ifan.  
  


"I don't think I want to pass through the Path of Blood," I said uneasily.   
  


"You are right to distrust it," said Arhu, letting go of my arm and steadying himself on his own feet. "It was designed never to admit anyone, no matter how pure. But it can be opened by other means.  
  


"There is a man in town, Sanders—he works as a toymaker now, but he was a brilliant mind in his day. He designed the Path. Tell him I sent you, and ask for the Source amulet and the Scroll of Atonement."  
  


"Where will you go?" I asked.  
  


Arhu smiled wanly. "To the Cathedral. To rest."  
  


"Oh, can—could we walk you there, in case—"  
  


"Despite what you saw today, I know how to keep out of trouble, Godwoken. But thank you all the same."  
  


We went back up the way we'd come, scouring the vault on our way for things that might come in useful. There was a sword on the wall of the innermost chamber, the same gleaming black as the statue of the God King. I took it and slipped it under my belt. 

Spectacular pieces of armour and weaponry were mounted throughout the vault, but it was all ostentatious, gold, the sort of stuff we'd be caught right away for carrying—so we left it.  
  


Lady Kemm's expensive curtains were drawn, and we didn't have to kill any nosy groundskeepers. Of course, if she knows about the hidden vault, she'll find her husband's corpse before the day is out—I just pray she doesn't, or we'll have even less time to sort out this mess of a city. I also didn't know there _was_ a toymaker in town, never mind where we might find him, so we blundered about the southeastern quarter of town until the Red Prince was stopped by a lizard woman with golden scales who seemed to be struggling not to panic. She pleaded with him in the tongue of the Ancient Empire—so I didn't catch a word of it, but the quiet fear in her voice turned my heart to lead.  
  


He dismissed her with a nod and then turned to us. "The Consulate of the Ancient Empire has been ravaged."  
  


"Oh, a detour." Sebille dug her nails into the back of her other hand. "How positively _peachy._ "  
  


"What's the damage?" asked Ifan, looking reluctantly down the main street. "Can it wait until we see this Sanders fellow?"  
  


"Absolutely not," snarled the Red Prince. "Does the word 'ravaged' fill you with gladness and lethargy?"  
  


"The Consulate is nearby," I said. "We can see for ourselves."  
  


"Lead the way," he said icily.  
  


'Ravaged' was a generous word to use. The embassy was on fire; the building was stone, but the roof wasn't, and there must have been wood and cloth inside—beams, or furniture. It was a blazing husk.  
  


In the crimson light of necrotic fire, I saw the devastation in the Red Prince's eyes. I saw it for a fraction of a second before the carefully crafted mask of neutrality came over him again—but he walked faster.  
  


There was not a soul inside, unless you count the charred skeletons of the dead, which had been enchanted to walk around like ghoulish puppets. They chased us straight through the building, and meant to follow us through the back exit to the gardens, but I drew water from one of the pools and flung razor-sharp shards of ice at them. One of them drew back, but not for long. I had a stupid, feverish idea.  
  


"If—if anyone's got any Source, bless the water!" I shouted. Someone did. I don't know who, I just know that the white light of the blessing blinded me, and I lifted the blessed water—all of it—and froze it, glazing the entire wall with ice, sealing the burning horrors inside. I turned around to face the others. "OK. Now wh—oh."  
  


A stutter. I don't know how else to put it. There was a stutter in my vision, like a heatwave, a piece of the garden in front of me was not-quite-right.  
  


"Of course," murmured the Red Prince, holding back a relieved smile. "The House of Dreams has interceded."  
  


I shuddered. "Does that—lead where I think it leads?"  
  


"There is one sure way to find out," he said. It might have been the first full sentence he'd said to me all day. "Shall we?" He held out his hand to me.  
  


Like an idiot, I took it.  
  


Travelling into the dream realm feels like being forced through a barrier of water. Or syrup. We were in the desert when we opened our eyes again, and I felt the sting of sandy air on my skin, like dozens of tiny, vengeful ants.  
  


"My prince!" cried a venerable lizard in simple robes. "At last, you arrive!" His eyes widened when he saw our linked hands. I cleared my throat and took a few steps back.  
  


"Brahmos," said the Red Prince, as if he was greeting an old friend. "I must find Sadha."  
  


"Life-shaper, prophesied Prince, I shall lead you to her. But there is a—" Brahmos trailed off, glaring in my direction. "These are words that ought not to be shared with interlopers."  
  


"I trust this woman with my life. Do not try my patience."  
  


"But of course," said Brahmos crisply. "Very well. My prince, you must know that the Princess has been plagued at every turn by the House of Shadows. She was forced to flee into this realm, she—she—swore herself to the God King, in the vain hope of protection."  
  


The Red Prince stiffened at the mention of the God King. "I would speak to her," he said slowly.  
  


Brahmos dipped a low, deferential bow and led us through the dream plane. My head hurts when I try to bring the image to mind—nothing made sense there; the false heat of the desert, the movement of the sun—the shape of the world was wrong. But we came to the spot we'd seen in the mirror on the Nameless Isle, the lush, carpeted oasis where Sadha was waiting.  
  


"My prince!" she called, starting to scramble to her feet. She stopped herself, closed her eyes for a moment and rose slowly, gracefully, but her eyes were bright.   
  


The Red Prince beamed and ran toward Sadha, lifting her off the ground in his embrace.   
  


"I was on the point of begging your pardon for my eagerness," she laughed, when he'd put her down again. "I have missed you so. You have been out of my dreams."  
  


"And you have vanished from mine," he said quietly.   
  


"I can guess at the reason." Sadha adjusted one of her many gold chains. "I—am sworn to the God King. The corruption of the Void is in me. My dreams are black, of late. Listen to me, my love," she said, taking his hands and looking him in the eye. "I am hunted, now by the Void as well as the Shadow. Yet—if I cannot return to Rivellon in safety. . .our child may."  
  


She stepped back. Behind her was a single egg—a dragon's egg—in a nest of cushions and silks. The Red Prince crouched in front of it and touched it with a shaking hand. "Hello," he said, nearly at a whisper.  
  


"The others are in my tent," said Sadha, watching him with a fond smile. "If—" She spared me a glance for the first time and stopped in her tracks. "—wait," she said, coming closer. "This is a Swornbreaker."  
  


I blinked. "Sorry?"  
  


"On your belt," she said impatiently. "May I have it." It was not a question.  
  


I looked down at the sword, with its wrought handle and long narrow blade of dark, luminous metal. "I—er—" I glanced in the Red Prince's direction, but he only had eyes for the egg. Fine. Clumsily, I wrestled the sword out of the loop on my belt and held it out to her on the flats of my hands. "It's yours, my lady."  
  


"Thank you," she said. Her jewelry clinked faintly as she leaned in, giving me a small smile that made me feel like the most important person in the world. I caught the sweet, familiar scent of jasmine. "I have seen you before. You serve my prince? What's your name?"  
  


"S-Safiya, my lady."  
  


"Safiya," she repeated, in her voice like honey. "Safiya. You are my saviour this day."   
  


My breath caught. "Thank you," I waffled. "I-I mean—"  
  


She held up her hand and silenced me with that faint, dizzying smile. Then she looked up. "My prince?"  
  


At her word, the Red Prince left the egg and rejoined us. "My princess."  
  


"Your servant was carrying a Swornbreaker. I had not thought to ask—I took it for an impossibility!"  
  


I waited for him to correct her—'companion' if not 'friend'—'associate'—I'd have taken 'hireling'—anything other than 'servant'—but he didn't so much as look my way. "A Sworn—" He turned the sword over in his hands. "A blade to end the covenant?"  
  


Sadha smiled wider and took the sword from him, holding it vertically in front of her. Something snaked from her chest—a tendril of the Void, thick and dark. She sliced it through and it dissipated into the air.   
  


"Freedom," she sighed. "That wretched Void-king is the last thing, my love, the final barrier between us and our eternal Empire."  
  


"I will return to you," promised the Red Prince.  
  


"I know." Sadha caressed the side of his face. "It will be a terrible battle, but it will be the last. And," she added, "a dragon, even a fledgling, may be a great help."  
  


He glanced at the egg. "Sadha. I have passed through no small danger, and worse is to come. Are you—"  
  


"We have here seven born conquerors," said Sadha. She nodded in the direction of the egg. "I trust that her power will be of use to you. And I trust that her father will guard her."  
  


"With my _life._ But—"  
  


"Please. Trust in me." Sadha sat down beside the egg-nest. The Red Prince kneeled on the carpet beside her. "Can you feel her hunger for life?" she asked softly. "She would burst from her frail cage if only she felt the touch of a flame." He was trembling. She took his hand in hers. "I am with you."  
  


The Red Prince nodded and took a moment to compose himself before breathing a column of bright-red fire over the egg. For a few endless seconds, the egg was still. Then a hole appeared in its shell, and a long, sharp claw poked through. I thought for a moment it was going to free itself with one calculated slice, but it was only a baby after all. It pawed uselessly at the opening it had made. The Red Prince started forward to help, but Sadha held him back. Finally, in one huge burst, the dragonling shattered the egg around it and took to the sky, stretching its damp wings for the first time, and gave a small, unpracticed roar. Very soon the little creature was tired—or bored—and it came down and nestled itself in the arms of the Red Prince. He looked down at it, awed.  
  


"One last thing, my love?" asked Sadha.  
  


"Anything."  
  


She opened her hand. There was a gold ring in her palm, festooned with rubies. "This trial will end before we know it," she said, "and the sun will dawn on our wedding day. Until then. . ." She flourished the ring. "Think of me."  
  


"I will," he said, and held out his hand. Sadha settled the ring carefully on his finger. Then she stood—and so did he, cradling the dragonling in his arms. Sadha stroked the head of the dragonling with the back of her hand. "I love you," she said, and her voice broke.  
  


"And I love you," said the Red Prince fervently.  
  


She pulled him into a long kiss and, when they had parted, whispered something I couldn't hear.  
  


Brahmos showed us out of the dream.  
  


"Took you long enough," said Ifan, when we were standing in the garden of the Consulate again. My ice barrier had held. At least there was that. "We'll have to try the toyseller tomorrow."  
  


"What is _that?"_ asked Sebille. The dragonling stirred, moving its wings a little.  
  


The Red Prince glared at her. "Sadha is dead."  
  


I bit back my surprise, although I didn't know why he would lie. But I supposed he expected me to go along with whatever this was, without question. A bit like a servant.  
  


"Oh," said Ifan. "That, er. . .settles the dragons, then."  
  


"But for one," Sebille pointed out.  
  


"Only a safeguard, I assure you," said the Red Prince. "These dragons, even as fledglings, possess untold power. I imagine it will be of some use in the days to come."  
  


Ifan looked him up and down. "Bit. . .cold, to use your offspring that way."  
  


The Red Prince's expression faltered, and I thought he was going to confess to his lie, but the snag was gone as quickly as it came. "Perhaps," he said calmly. "But given the odds we seem to be facing, this is hardly a time to split hairs."  
  


"That's splitting hairs?" Ifan raised an eyebrow.  
  


Sebille grinned. "I've never seen a destroyer of worlds look quite so small and precious."  
  


"You're all right using it as a weapon?" Ifan asked her.  
  


"Well, it's a dragon, darling. It's not here to weave tapestries."  
  


"Hm. Sorry about your trouble, anyway." Ifan clapped the Red Prince on the shoulder. "I'll buy you a drink, if they let us in with a dragon in tow."  
  


Sebille peered at the dragonling. "We might smuggle it in. Fly it in through a window."  
  


"The city cannot know of the existence of a dragon, let alone that we are the ones harbouring her," said the Red Prince firmly.  
  


"Huh." Ifan scratched his chin. "Might fit in my pack, if it—if she's quiet."  
  


So we strolled into a busy tavern, Ifan with a suspiciously restless pack, all of us hoping, _hoping_ the dragonling wouldn't peek out and decide to set the building ablaze.  
  


I wasn't at all in the mood for a drink—not even a rice wine. I wanted to sleep. (Actually, what I wanted was to sneak away and pretend no part of the past two months had ever happened. But they've seized my house and we're nearly to the end, anyway.) So I stayed standing while the others took a seat. "I'm going to get our rooms," I said.  
  


"Oh—take this with you," said Ifan, gently passing me his pack with the dragonling inside. "Let her stretch her wings," he added, in a low voice.  
  


The Red Prince wouldn't meet my eye.  
  


". . .OK," I said, forcing a smile. I went to the bar, paid for two rooms, left one of the keys with Sebille, and went upstairs.  
  


The dragonling exploded out of Ifan's pack as soon as I opened it, and bolted for the open window. I sprinted faster than I'd ever done to beat her to it, barely managing to close the window before she could flit away into the night. "Hey," I said breathlessly. "Your father will have my head if I let you fly off. Not that I'm in the mood to do him any favours."  
  


She huffed reproachfully at me, and curled up on the bed.  
  


"You're a dragon," I told her, slowly approaching the bed. She allowed me to sit beside her. "But you're still just a baby. You can't fly off into the world just yet."  
  


The dragonling lifted one wing and gazed at me from beneath it. She sneezed, and a little puff of fire emerged from her nostrils.  
  


I grinned and reached out a hand to stroke her across her back. She startled and spat long, white-hot flames at me. "Hey!" I cried. "I'm sorry!" She had burnt the side of my hand. I reached into my pack for a skin of water. "Sorry," I repeated as I rummaged. "You've had a rough go of it, haven't you? Even if you're only an hour old, it's been a bastard of an hour. Oh." I covered my mouth. "I shouldn't teach you any nasty words. Ah. Here we are."  
  


There was a cup on the nightstand. I emptied a bit of the water into it and healed the burn on my hand. The dragonling opened her eyes and blinked quickly. She scuttled closer and flicked her long tongue out to taste the cool mist of the healing spell.  
  


"That's what's called Hydrosophy," I explained. "It's. . .cold."  
  


She swiped at me, weakly, until I was finished healing, and when I lay flat on the bed, she launched herself into the air and perched on top of a tall bookshelf, wedging herself in the small space between the top of the shelf and the ceiling.  
  


I sighed to myself and stood up. "Hi, baby," I said, holding up my hands as I came near. "Did I frighten you?"  
  


The dragonling started to growl, low and threatening. I had a few moments to stand and wonder whether I was going to die tonight, mauled by a baby dragon.   
  


"Are you hungry?" I tried. "I would be, if I were you. Hang on." Slowly I backed away. I wasn't carrying any food, but I suspected Ifan would be. I rifled through his things until I found a parcel wrapped in a large, dark-green leaf. Inside was the last of the dried meat from the elven camp. "Do you eat meat?" I asked the dragonling. "Well. You _are_ a predator. Look at you."  
  


I held out the meat on the open leaf, praying that I wasn't about to lose several more fingers. She crawled up to the edge of the bookcase and glared down at me, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.  
  


"It's food," I said hopefully.  
  


Before I even had time to shriek, she swooped down, snatched the leaf from my hands and brought her prize back up to her bookshelf-nook. She nipped cautiously at a sliver of meat, decided it was good and devoured the entire contents of the parcel. The growling stopped.  
  


I took off my boots and sat on the bed with my back against the headboard, content to watch the dragonling do whatever she was going to do.  
  


She never took her big golden eyes off of me. I folded my hands and started to nod off when I felt an impact to my side, and heard a soft thud. I smiled, but didn't open my eyes until she nudged me with her head. She had dropped a tiny scrap of meat into my palm and was trying to close my fingers around it.  
  


I laughed and popped the crumb of meat into my mouth. "Thank you for saving me something."  
  


The dragonling clumped around on the bed, clawing at the covers, and finally settled down a healthy distance away from me. I dozed, and every so often she would wake me up, having inched just a little closer to me. Finally, she clambered onto my lap. I put my arms around her, and she rested her head in the crook of my elbow.  
  


The door creaked. I opened my eyes—first groggy—then terrified. I'd forgotten to lock the door. I had a dragon in my room and I'd forgotten to lock the bloody door.  
  


"You seem to have made yourselves comfortable," said the Red Prince.  
  


"Don't talk so loudly," I mumbled. "She's asleep."  
  


He closed the door behind him and set his things down on the other bed. "Whatever the volume, Safiya, you and I need to discuss a few things."  
  


"You don't need to explain anything to me," I said, trying to squash the stupid surge of anger and humiliation that flared in my chest.  
  


"You will find that I do."  
  


I shook my head. "Do you want your daughter to be here for it?"  
  


"No," he said, nearing my bed with his arms outstretched.   
  


When I tried to move the dragonling, she woke. She thrashed for a moment, refusing to let me hand her off, but when she caught sight of the Red Prince, she fumbled her way happily into his arms.  
  


"Clumsy little thing you are," he teased, although he sounded on the verge of tears. He nodded at me and left the room, returning empty-handed a few minutes later.  
  


I said nothing. I drew my legs toward me.  
  


"I should have left her with her mother," said the Red Prince quietly, sitting beside me on the bed.   
  


"She likes you a lot. And her mother is in a dangerous place, too," I reasoned.  
  


He gave me a resentful look. "In your position, I wouldn't be half so charitable."  
  


I shrugged, trying to look disinterested. "Why don't you tell me about your new plan? I think it changed while I wasn't looking."  
  


"It was not my intention to change it," he snapped. "I have found my way through countless trials in my time. What I know is this: when the pressure either to act or flee becomes intolerable, I always act, and I always prevail. And yet. . ."  
  


"I couldn't have done it either," I said. "I've said that before. So." Now that the dragonling was gone, I got up and opened the window. I had a sudden urge to breathe fresh air. "Is it dragons, then? The eternal dragon Empire?"  
  


"No. That is—not precisely." The Red Prince sighed. "I failed in my duty once, but I cannot allow the prophesy of the Shadow Prince to come to pass. I will not languish in my palace, awaiting the bloody demise of my Empire and my people."  
  


I frowned. "Do you have a choice?"   
  


"I have only to install a Divine whom I can trust to intervene, should my dragon descendants ever overstep themselves." He paused, steeling himself. "That will be you."  
  


"No, it won't," I said flatly. "We've been over this."  
  


"I am not making a request," he said. "I am not begging for your leave, I am stating a truth."  
  


"Walk to the Void," I spat, and got to my feet.  
  


"How long," he began, acidly, "have I endured your endless blithering about easing my burden? And now that you have the opportunity—"  
  


"That's not what this is!" I broke in. "You're just throwing me to the wolves to cover your own mistake!"  
  


"If, when you say 'throwing you to the wolves', you mean 'gifting you with unfathomable power', then, yes, you have the right of it."  
  


I balled my fists. "I don't want it. I've said that from the beginning."  
  


"Pity."  
  


"I'll leave. I'll end myself."  
  


"That is your prerogative," he said, buffing his claw against his shirt. "If it isn't you, it will be me. The Ancient Empire will flourish as never before. The rest of Rivellon may not profit."  
  


I moved my mouth, trying to form the words that would make him see sense. "Ifan and Sebille won't stand for that."  
  


"They may agree or disagree as they choose. I have not only a formidable sword arm, but also a fledgling dragon in my quarter."  
  


"Really," I said, wrapping my arms around me. "Either I ascend, or you kill them?"  
  


He rolled his eyes. "I will thank you from the bottom of my heart not to make a stage play out of this. No one needs to die, unless they should insist on throwing themselves in my path."  
  


"All right." I leaned back against the bookcase as I lowered myself to the floor. I needed one more piece. "Why did you lie about Sadha?"  
  


He smiled humourlessly. "If you leave me no alternative but to bear the mantle of Divinity myself. . .it is my hope that without the apparent threat of dragons, Ifan and Sebille won't be quite so eager to take up arms against me."  
  


"Oh."  
  


"Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am not unfeeling."  
  


"I wonder about that." I stood up again, biting my lip, and sat beside him. "I wonder if this is difficult for you. Maybe you're going to pieces. I can't tell." He was looking straight ahead. I hoped I was making him uneasy. "Does it bother you, what you're going to do to me?"  
  


"You," he hissed, looking me squarely in the eye, "are going to be the most powerful being who has ever lived. The demon who possesses your mother's soul—you could vanquish her with a pointed look. You would be the heir of the Divine Order, _yours_ to rearrange or disband as you choose. Never another Silent Monk. Never another Shrieker. Should I apologise for that? What does your good sense tell you?"  
  


I crossed my legs. "I know you can talk circles around me. I know. But you didn't answer my question. Does this bother you at all?"  
  


"Exactly what use is there in my answering that?"  
  


There were wrinkles in my robe. I smoothed them out. "None for you. I just want to know."  
  


He sighed and cast his gaze toward the window, the small square view of a dimly-lit city. As he pondered, his hand drifted toward mine, apparently of its own accord. When his fingertips brushed the back of my hand, we both drew back. "Ah," he said, turning back to me with that inscrutable half-smile. "I think I'll miss this—all told. All these little blunders and missteps. We might have laughed, if the circumstances were different. I do love your laugh."  
  


My face heated. I was furious with myself for having asked the question, with him for answering it. . .and again with myself, for being so _bloody_ pleased that he still had a good word to say to me. I wanted to be in his arms, absolutely safe, like that night in the Lady Vengeance—but if he had touched me, I would have shrugged him off. "Fine," I said, and stood up to set my things in order for the night. (I was trying to keep my hands busy.)  
  


"Safiya," he went on. I was in the other corner of the room, with my back to him. "You have never demanded perfection of me, nor ever pretended at it yourself—your gift to me is the rare, brief blessing of personhood, without duty, without prophesy."  
  


"Fine," I repeated, a little louder. "Lovely. Glad I could be of use. Glad that—my service was up to your standard. Really." I walked over and put my comb on the nightstand. "Kindly move, so I can sleep."  
  


He had the fucking nerve to sound hurt. "Safiya—"  
  


"H——", I replied, flatly. (Actually I don't care anymore. The name is _Hesthas._ Let the demons take him.)  
  


I stood in front of him with my arms folded. He got to his feet—we were face to face. Neither of us moved. I took hold of his arms, I still can't say why. I thought I was going to move him out of my way, never mind that he's bigger than me and made of nothing but muscle. His body reacted to mine; he leaned down to accommodate me in whatever I was doing. _Fuck it_ I thought, and buried my face in his chest, breathing in the warmth of him. Gently, he eased my hands from his upper arms and twined our fingers together. I stood on the tips of my toes, and pressed my mouth to the hollow of his neck. He made a soft noise—I felt his skin, burning hot, against my lips.  
  


So let the record show that I was the one who pulled away, and the one who disentangled our hands. "Move out of my way," I breathed.  
  


"Oh," he said, and got out of my way. Instead he sat at the foot of the other bed, turned away from me again.  
  


I felt guilty—but not really that guilty, all things considered. I grabbed the comb from my nightstand and combed out my hair, and all the while he sat there at the end of his bed, motionless except for the subtle, absent-minded swish of his tail. I put a quick, ugly braid in my hair (pain in the arse to do with nine fingers), pulled my robes over my head, dropped them on the floor and wrapped myself in the covers.  
  


So that's my situation—I don't know what in the empty Void I'm going to do, or how I'm going to do it. I wish you were here.  
  


I love you.  
Saf


	24. Day 52

I woke up early—disgustingly early, while the sky was still half-dark. I threw on my robes and hastily tied the laces on my boots and realised, just as my stomach started to complain, that I hadn't eaten dinner the previous night. So I snuck downstairs, hoping they would have something I could scarf down and then hurry back to bed.  
  


Ifan was at the bar. He raised his cup to me. "You're up early."  
  


"So are you," I said, yawning into my hand. "Did you get on all right with the dr—" I looked around. Almost no one was here at this hour; the handful of patrons were too groggy and miserable to pay us any mind. "—with the little one, I mean?"  
  


"Pff. She doesn't trust easy. We did well enough, though. Was, er—" Ifan sighed through his nose. He might be good with battle strategy, but he can't stick having to choose his words carefully. "—how was your night?" he said at last.  
  


"Odd," I said. The innkeeper came out from the back room and greeted me. I asked for whatever was quick and cheap; she nodded and left the bar again. "It was odd," I repeated.  
  


"Bloody rough hand, having to—to do in your own family. Rhalic's eyes."  
  


"I—yeah," I said dumbly. I'd completely forgotten about the lie. ". . .no more dragons, at least."  
  


Ifan pursed his lips. "No more dragons."  
  


"But one," I corrected myself.  
  


"Yeah, but what's it going to do, make spores?" He took a long drink of whatever was in his tankard. "I'd want a few years of peace and quiet. Or a few decades. Taking over an empire would be the last thing on my mind."  
  


"We'll see how it turns out. Thank you," I added—the innkeeper had put a plate of food in front of me. One whole potato, baked in its skin with a pad of butter on top, and a few scraps of pork with fatty rinds. Good enough.  
  


"Planning on being the Empress?" asked Ifan, looking studiously into his drink.  
  


"Absolutely not. _Absolutely_ not. No." I picked the rind off of a bit of meat. "I was actually thinking I might apprentice under a healer here in the city. There are a lot of pieces that need picking up, even after we. . .you know."  
  


"Right noble of you," he grinned.  
  


"What about you? Is there—I mean—the Lone Wolves aren't—"  
  


Ifan waved a hand. "I'll land on my feet, by and by. Might wreck my knees in the fall. We'll see."  
  


"Mm."  
  


I was quiet as I ate—I hadn't realised exactly how famished I was. When the sun was fully up, and yellow light streamed through the tavern windows, Sebille and the Red Prince came downstairs, he carrying a suspiciously bulky pack.  
  


"Morning," said Ifan, hefting a hand.  
  


The Red Prince lifted a hand to him in turn, but Sebille scowled.   
  


"Lucky thing you left out 'good', dearest," she said. "While you were making merry, I've been trying to keep my fingers out of the teeth of a certain small someone."  
  


"Sorry," said Ifan, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I didn't realise, er—"  
  


Sebille leaned forward on the counter and winked at the innkeeper. "Darling, I need whatever you have that'll keep. Dried meat—biscuits? Can you do that for me?"  
  


The innkeeper—she was a younger woman than I'd thought, now that I saw her closely—flushed and darted away to fetch what Sebille had asked for.  
  


The Red Prince took the seat beside Ifan. "I hardly think _bis_ —"  
  


"The biscuits are mine," Sebille interrupted him, sitting down beside me. "I have such a weakness for sweet things out of human cities," she whispered in my ear.  
  


I smiled. "There's this amazing bakery just outside of the trade district."  
  


"You'll take me there when we're through with this ordeal, won't you, sweetling?" She squeezed my hand. "To celebrate."  
  


"I—sure," I said, flustering a little. She has eyes just like yours. I've mentioned that, haven't I?  
  


Sebille touched my hair. "This is a mess. Can I?"  
  


She didn't wait for a response before whisking the red cloth tie out of my braid, ploughing through my hair with her fingers and rebraiding it in her ornamental way. I didn't look her in the eye when I thanked her.  
  


Once the others had eaten, and Sebille had tied a large pile of dried beef and various hard cheeses, crackers and biscuits and the late gods know what else into a square of linen and placed it into her pack, we set out for the toymaker.  
  


The front room of Sanders' workshop was cluttered and warm, and smelled of paint and varnish. It should have been pleasant, but in the silence, there was an eerie sound like the ticking of several dozen clocks, each one a little out of pace with the others. Rows and rows of half-finished puppets lined every shelf. I prodded one—it flared to life, its eyes bright with the unmistakeable blue of Source, and, in a stilted, high-pitched little voice, wheezed 'hello!'.  
  


I shrieked and jumped back. An old man popped out from behind a massive oaken desk, brushed the sawdust from his clothes and shuffled toward the offending puppet, completely ignoring us. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," he mumbled. He picked up the puppet the way you might pick up a baby, and coaxed it to shut its sweet little eyes, be silent moppet, it wasn't ready yet, and so on.  
  


"You're a Sourcerer," said Ifan, as if that was the most unusual thing happening here.  
  


"Well, good morning to you all," said the toymaker, bowing his head. "Don't put yourself out trying to report me, my boy," he told Ifan. "No, no, not worth your trouble. The Divine Order knows me, they do. I use my art to bring a little bit of joy into the world, you see, and how can they fault me for that?"  
  


"We're looking for Sanders," I said cautiously.  
  


The old man gave me a peculiar look: kindly, but full of contempt. "You've found him, my girl, you have. Please don't bother the little darlings. They still need a bit of fine tuning, you understand, they don't take to shouting and stamping, so if you please. . ."  
  


"Of course." I cleared my throat. "Sorry. It startled me."  
  


"No, no, not before _you_ startled _it._ "  
  


"Enough," the Red Prince cut in. "You are the architect of the Path of Blood, are you not?"  
  


Sanders scratched at the bald spot on top of his head, whipped a threadbare, oily rag out of his pocket and started to polish one of the shelves.  
  


"For gods' sakes," said the Red Prince under his breath. "Arhu of the Divine Cathedral sent us to you," he reiterated, more loudly. "We need a Source amulet and the Scroll of Atonement. Afterward, we will be more than happy to leave you to your. . .work."  
  


"Yes, yes—quite. My work." Sanders took a breath and set the rag aside, walking back to his desk and rummaging in its drawers. "I wish I had never touched that damnable cathedral, I surely do. My work has been the death of so many pilgrims. . .here you are," he said, emerging with a small, circular pendant in hand.   
  


"And the Scroll?" asked Ifan.  
  


"Oh, no, you'll deal with the amulet first, I think. You'll need to absorb five souls. And mark me, _not_ five charges of Source, but five immortal souls. If you must, then come back to me after, and I will give you the Scroll if I must. If Arhu gave the word."  
  


He hurried us out of his workshop and into the cold, fragrant air of the morning. I smelled fresh bread and thought of that bakery again.  
  


"'Immortal souls'," muttered the Red Prince, thumbing the amulet. I looked over his shoulder. It was a round, tarnished piece of metal, cut into the crude shape of a skull. "If we have the power to end their existence for all time, that makes them rather painfully mortal."  
  


"Five. That's one each and one of us takes two," said Ifan.  
  


"I'll do it," my mouth said, before my mind could catch up. Ifan shot me a look of concern, and Sebille narrowed her eyes at me. My blood froze, but I kept on. "It's only fair. I didn't do it the other day."  
  


In the corner of my vision, the Red Prince gave me a tiny nod of approval. Fairness and equity. The picture of the next Divine. I hated him so sharply I felt sick.  
  


"Darling, this isn't a game of numbers," said Sebille, the suspicion fading from her eyes.  
  


"Actually," the Red Prince put in, "it stands to reason that we should spread the regret and excruciation around somewhat."  
  


Ifan gripped my shoulder and looked me in the eye. "If you're playing at being noble, don't."  
  


I bristled. I wanted to protest and get offended, but I made myself take a deep breath and said calmly: "I'm not. I think it's fair that I pull my weight."  
  


"Listen closely to me. You remember your first kill?"  
  


"Yes," I said.  
  


"Do you?"  
  


I frowned at him. Of course I remembered—it was that Magister in the basement of Fort Joy.

I took the deepest breath I could. I breathed in until my lungs were full to bursting.  
  


He might have been thirty, he had stringy hair and sunken eyes, and I put an ice shard in his head. It felt like I was there again, in that dingy basement that smelled of mold and blood and sweetness, standing over the corpse, numbly picking a warm, sticky bit of brain from my cheek. My head spun.  
  


"Hey, easy," came Ifan's voice from very far away. "You're here. In Arx. It's a bit chilly. It's morning—it's light."  
  


My teeth were chattering too hard for me to speak.  
  


"Listen close," said someone else—a woman—Sebille. "Listen to the sound of the market. There's a woman raving about her cheese. Do you hear it?"  
  


I strained my hearing.   
  


_—the difference between a good man and a good brie?_ I didn't catch the punchline, but I heard the seller in the distance, and I knew where I must be, near the market, and cobble, and bread, and children in the streets, and the spire of the Cathedral in the distance.  
  


"OK," I said, nodding slowly. "OK. I'm here."  
  


"Remember how you're feeling," said Ifan. "Consuming a spirit is a hundred times worse."  
  


I chewed my lip.  
  


"It's OK," he said, gentling. "Just sit this one out. Or take the one. I'll take two. You do enough just healing."  
  


I felt weak. I wanted to just say 'yes', and have the weight of the decision taken away. But I didn't sneak out the night before, I didn't jump headfirst out the window, I didn't run to my father, or even Ram, and I wasn't going to do it now. "Well," I said, "what sort of healer am I? If I don't—you know—try to minimise the damage?"  
  


Ifan sighed. "I can't stop you."  
  


"Now where do we find five spirits?" asked Sebille.  
  


"Wherever there is death," replied the Red Prince. "Really, this entire city is a Sourcerer's banquet."  
  


I winced. "Please don't say that."  
  


"Well, then." Sebille smiled unkindly at him. "What do you say, your Imperial Majesty, we take a look around the Consulate?"  
  


"The city gates are nearer," he pointed out, refusing to rise to her needling, "and, if the Oak boy's finger-painting, or the piles of corpses are any indication, there will be spirits enough to sate this bedeviled amulet."  
  


Sebille had stopped listening. She'd come up behind the Red Prince and opened his pack to check on the dragonling. "Hello, my little world-ender," she said. "You must be famished."   
  


The dragonling's response was a small growl and a torrent of black smoke.  
  


Sebille filled her hand with the dried meat she'd gotten that morning and held it inside; the dragonling scarfed it all down in one chomp. She grinned and patted the little creature on the head before gently closing the pack again.  
  


Ifan cleared his throat. "So—the spirits. Can they run from us? If they can, we can't have. . .hell. We can't have witnesses. Or we'll be chasing them." I could see him hating himself the longer he spoke.  
  


"So we all strike at the same time," Sebille shrugged. "And don't talk to them, not even if they engage you. The basics of efficient killing."  
  


"You don't sound bothered," I said.  
  


"No more than normal, dearest." She reached out and straightened the collar of my robe. "If I still bothered about things like this, I'd have gone out of my mind ages ago."   
  


"Oh." Her coolness was strangely comforting to me. It made what we were going to do seem less horrible. "If someone destroyed your spirit, would you be afraid?"  
  


She laughed. "Afraid of oblivion? It's only nothing. It doesn't bite."  
  


So I found myself staring down the Source-blue spirit of a very old woman. She didn't try to speak to me, only pushed her spectacles higher up her nose and looked at me with a dull, half-interested amusement.  
  


"Now!" called Ifan.  
  


I grit my teeth and focused on the starving feeling in the hollow of my stomach, made myself claw at the old woman, pulling strands of her into myself. Her Source felt like Amadia's had—sinewy, clinging to itself, as if trying not to be consumed. When she understood what I was doing, the woman shook her head, tried to grab at me before she remembered she was a spirit. She even spoke, screaming inside the chamber of my head, begging me to stop what I was doing, she didn't want to go. A flood of her memories battered me, the smell of pink roses, the feeling of grass beneath her feet, a white sundress, a casket, a paper cut.   
  


I didn't stop until she had vanished. Then I turned and vomited onto the cobblestone.  
  


While I was on my hands and knees, heaving until nothing but a bit of bile dripped over my chin, I remembered that I was going to have to do this again, and I sobbed. Only once. Afterward, I clamped my mouth shut and struggled to my feet.  
  


"The rest of the spirits here seem to have gone into hiding," remarked Sebille. She was right; looking around, the throng of blue figures had dissipated. My stomach dropped at the thought that they were fleeing from us.  
  


We passed the skull amulet around, placing the Source we'd gotten from the spirits inside—the skull's empty sockets glowed faintly.  
  


"One more," I said, and spit the last sourness out of my mouth.  
  


We found one more. It was worse than the first time. That's all.   
  


Sanders' eyes filled with tears when Ifan put the amulet in his hand, but he gave us the Scroll—the sun was just starting to set when we went back to the tavern.  
  


"I'm going to get a bit of bed rest," said Sebille, stretching her long arms above her head. "Find me when you're all ready to talk about tomorrow."  
  


"Are you going upstairs?" I asked. "I'll come."  
  


The Red Prince held out his pack to me, with the dragonling inside. I reached for it, but Sebille grabbed my wrist. "Oh, no," she said. "We've played nursemaid for long enough, o mightiest prince. Do a little fathering."  
  


With that, she walked me to the bar, bought two rooms, dragged me upstairs, and flopped onto one of the beds, all in the space of a minute or two. "You aren't his lackey, sweetest," she said, shooting me a sharp look as she folded her hands behind her head. "You're a free woman."  
  


I almost laughed—but I would have given myself away. If she knew exactly how bound I was. . . "I know," I said instead.  
  


"Good. You might try acting like it." She sat up and fished the rest of the food out of her pack—it was actually sort of luxurious: various cheeses, raisins, dried mango, nuts. "Eat with me," she said.  
  


I went and sat on the bed with her. Smiling, I picked out a bit of mango and let it melt on my tongue. "This is amazing."  
  


"Mm." She took a piece of mango for herself. "My brother—one of my brothers—was a fruit fiend. We'd gather basketfuls, apples and bananas, and we'd lay them out. . .and the next morning we would find he'd eaten it all before it ever had the chance to dry."  
  


I laughed. "I was the same way. After we moved here, my dad kept a stash of dried fruit and things the clans would sell in the market. He only got to eat it about half of the time. The rest of the time I'd gotten to it. 'Like a rat'."  
  


"I don't understand it," said Sebille, shaking her head. "I think it all tastes of shoe leather."  
  


"That's part of why it's good," I insisted.  
  


"If you say so, dear."  
  


I picked up a cracker, but there was no knife to slice the cheese with. Without my having to ask, Sebille slid one of her daggers out of its scabbard and passed it to me. I inspected it for blood. "Wow. You keep these really clean."  
  


"I try to," she said through a mouthful of biscuit.  
  


I cut a slice of a dry, orange-yellow cheese and set it on top of my cracker. Instead of eating it, I stared listlessly. "You seem so fearless, Sebille. I don't know how you do it."  
  


She laughed. "I'm not fearless, darling, I—"  
  


"My name isn't 'darling'," I said testily. I didn't like to be laughed at.  
  


" _Safiya,_ " she said, mocking me, "I'm not fearless. I've just been blunted."  
  


"Oh," I said. I'd heard someone say that before. "Is it one of those things about—showing weakness?"  
  


"I think that's likely."  
  


"Like why you don't sleep?" I asked. "I don't know how you stay on your feet."  
  


"Practice." She blinked and rubbed a bit of dirt from her cheek with the back of her hand. I saw how tired her face was; her eyesockets dark as bruises. "Shall I tell you a secret?"  
  


"Please," I said.  
  


"I'm positively fucking dying for a good night's rest, dearest. I would do unspeakable things if it meant I could sleep."  
  


I frowned. "Why don't you take the room for yourself? The rest of us could squeeze. Even if it was just for a night."  
  


Sebille smiled and stole the cracker out of my hand, bit off half of it and gave the other half back to me. I pretended to be outraged, but laughed in the end, and popped the remaining half in my mouth.  
  


"Ifan made me the same offer when the Lady Vengeance conjured those beautiful bedchambers," she said. "But it's not privacy that I'm missing, or solitude, it's. . .that silly, blasted feeling of safety. And, sad as it sounds, that's gone for good."  
  


"It doesn't have to be, does it?" I considered the problem. "You could build up to it. Take the absolute tiniest little nap in the world. One minute."  
  


She shot me a look of disbelief. "Now?"  
  


"Why not? I'll do whatever you need. I'll guard the door. . .or I'll take the other room, or—I don't know, you can tie up my hands if it makes you feel better. I don't know."  
  


". . .all right," said Sebille slowly, gathering the rest of the food and setting it aside. She lay stiffly on the bed, as if she wasn't sure what to do. "Come here," she told me. "Are you carrying any weapons?"  
  


I held up my hands. "My staff's in the corner, my pack's by my bed. I haven't got anything."  
  


"Lie beside me," she said. I lay close beside her—I had to, or we'd tumble off the narrow bed. She put her arm loosely around my shoulders. "If I fall asleep, sweetest, count to fifty and then wake me. Not a second longer, do you understand?"  
  


"Yes."  
  


"Check the lock on the door," she said.   
  


I got up, a little reluctantly, and confirmed that the door was locked. Sebille had me check the window, as well as every cupboard and drawer in the room, and the space under both beds, before she was satisfied. Then she opened one of her arms and I lay back down with her. We were very still. My cheek was pressed against her chest—I could feel her slow breaths. I've never lain so still as I did then.  
  


After an eternity, her hand went limp and fell off my shoulder, dangling off the end of the bed. I smiled, heart pounding, and counted to fifty before I nudged her. "Sebille," I said softly.  
  


She jolted upright, throwing me straight off the bed, and whipped her head around as if she was in a completely new place and needed to get her bearings very, very quickly.  
  


"It's OK," I murmured, picking myself up off the floor. "You just fell asleep. It's only been a minute. Less."  
  


"All the sweet moon-god's blood—" she hissed to herself, screwing her eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose.  
  


"How do you feel?" I asked.  
  


"Fine," she said shortly, and opened her eyes. "I slept?"  
  


"For fifty counts. Then I woke you, like you asked."  
  


"I slept."  
  


"Yep." I sat on the bed beside her.  
  


"All right, then." She breathed out.   
  


"You slept!" I beamed. "So you can do it, at least."  
  


"That's. . .a comfort." Sebille reached out and touched my cheek. "You're very sweet, Safiya."  
  


I turned toward her—we were nearly nose to nose—leaned in the rest of the way, and kissed her very lightly. Her lips were jagged and tasted of blood (she bites the skin off them). She smiled and grabbed me by the back of the head, crushing her open mouth against mine. Then, abruptly, she let go of me and pulled back.  
  


I must have looked very put out, because she laughed fondly and knuckled my cheek. "Darling, I would," she said. "If I thought it was what you wanted."  
  


"I do."  
  


"Liar. You want a warm body, now that your prideful Prince has gone cold."  
  


I had nothing to say to that. "Sorry," I said, shaking my head. "I don't know what I was thinking of. I'll be next door until the others come up."  
  


She nodded coolly at me as I scampered out of the room. I went one room down and fumbled with the lock—it was a little rusted.  
  


The Red Prince was already inside, kneeling in the centre of the floor with the dragonling in his arms. "Safiya," he said curtly.  
  


"Oh." I had hoped I could have a moment to myself. I didn't bother hiding my disappointment. "Hi."   
  


I wanted to climb into one of the beds and lie there until Ifan decided to join us, but the dragonling turned its bright eyes on me and chattered, spewing a small fiery cloud my way.  
  


"Hello," I replied, grinning despite myself. I sat down on the floor and reached out to pet the dragonling, trying very hard to ignore her father's presence. She let me touch her. "Are you going to name her anything?" I asked.  
  


"I couldn't," said the Red Prince lowly. "Not until I am reunited with Sadha, that we might choose a name together."  
  


"Right," I said, feeling cold. "Listen. Sebille should be the Divine."  
  


He raised his head. "Safiya, for—"  
  


"No, listen. She's so smart, and she has experience, and she won't—let anyone walk over her. She'll fight off the dragons when they come."  
  


"Yes," he said, conversationally, not to disturb the dragonling. "And the rest of Rivellon with her. What _I_ need is for someone to temper the fiery souls of my descendants, that it needn't come to bloodshed."  
  


"She—"  
  


"If you can look into my eyes and tell me that Sebille is a paragon of patience and charity—you have my gravest word—I'll crown her myself."  
  


I looked at my hands.  
  


"I thought not." He lifted my chin with the tip of his claw and evaluated me. "Don't look so miserable. I promise you, this course is best for everyone."  
  


"Don't touch me," I said, and moved away.  
  


Someone knocked at the door. It was Ifan, a little red in the face, letting us know to come next door.  
  


We sat down in a square, sizing one another up.  
  


"So," began Ifan, "we have our way inside the Temple. We're likely to find Dallis there, which means we have to decide this thing once and for all." He cleared his throat. "I don't feel any differently than I did on the Nameless Isle."  
  


"I do," said Sebille. "Rivellon needs a Divine."  
  


"Agreed," said the Red Prince, as the dragonling chirped and nipped at his fingers. "Otherwise, we are plunging the world into a deeper chaos than before."  
  


"I think so, too," I said hollowly.  
  


Ifan sucked in his cheeks. "Fine. Three to one, we put forth a Divine. And that's Sebille or the Prince."  
  


"Actually," I put in, "I want to nominate myself as well."  
  


"I humbly beg your pardon?" demanded the Red Prince, like a born actor. "From the very first, your refrain has been 'I don't want to be Divine'. What, pray, spurred this sudden change of heart?"  
  


"I think—" I _am._ I swallowed. "I'm our best chance at keeping the peace."  
  


"Oh, are you?" asked Sebille, in a tone so forcibly sweet it hurt my ears. "Do tell."  
  


"The Empire is going to do what all empires do—that is—expand. If they're a threat now, they would be unstoppable with a Divine Emperor. We might have peace once the Empire covered all of Rivellon, but that's not what I want." I shrugged.   
  


"Excellent," snapped Sebille. "That makes two of us."  
  


"OK," I said. "Let me ask you a question. What are you going to do with the Divine Order, as Divine?"  
  


"I don't care," she said. "They're hardly my priority."  
  


"Maybe they should be. Lucian's age was the age of humans. Maybe Sebille's age will be the age of elves, but it'll take a long time before the elves are strong again. So who is going to stand against the Empire in the meantime?" I asked.  
  


"I remind you that the Empire is no mindless predator. We are more than capable of negotiation," said the Red Prince.  
  


"Fine," I said, "but if humans are weak, with the Divine Order dissolved, and elves, even with an elven Divine, are weak while they recover their numbers, then you'll strike. Right? That's not. . .bloodthirst, it's just—you know—good practice."  
  


"So how's your plan different from 'Bille's?" Ifan asked.  
  


"What I really want is to erase the Divine order," I said hotly, "but it would be smarter to reform them—to change them from law enforcement to a force dedicated to fighting the Void. I'll put the Magisters on trial, and I'll see to it that there's never another Silent Monk.

"I want to make amends with the elves; to give them whatever land and resources they need to rebuild, and send human troops in to help if necessary. That also means holding a serious discussion with the Ancient Empire, and negotiating for the release of their slaves—and if any want to stay, to see to it that they get fair pay."  
  


"You would collapse the foundation of the Empire," said the Red Prince.  
  


I shook my head. "I didn't say this was all going to happen overnight."  
  


"The Divine has to make hard decisions," Sebille reminded me. "Every day, all day long, lives hang in the balance. Are you certain you can handle that, sweetest?"  
  


"I've killed," I said, swallowing down bile, "and I've—I've consumed spirits. Those weren't easy decisions. I don't know what else I could do to prepare myself."  
  


"You haven't reached your breaking point, darling. That's dangerous. It means you don't know quite where it is."  
  


"I broke when I saw Ulara as a Monk. Amadia spent weeks trying to convince me she was my mother, and on the Nameless Isle I was ready to let her take over my body. I broke then. I've made terrible decisions—because I was out of my mind with grief—and come out of it—well—alive, at least." I felt strangely steady as I smiled at her. "I think I'm doing all right."  
  


"Do you cite your numerous personal failures with the intent to win us over?" frowned the Red Prince.   
  


"Listen," said Ifan. "We can solve this very simply. Sebille, would you vote for the Red Prince?"  
  


"Not at knifepoint," she said crisply.  
  


"Saf?"  
  


"No," I said.  
  


"Me neither," said Ifan. "Sorry," he added—the Red Prince was doing a beautiful job of looking outraged. "Three to one. So we've thrown out my idea and now his. That means it's got to be either Sebille or Saf. I'm guessing both of you are voting for yourselves."  
  


"Yes," said Sebille.  
  


I nodded. My stomach roiled. It was about to happen.  
  


"Fine. Who's your pick?" Ifan asked.  
  


The Red Prince stood. "I cannot allow this. My conscience forbids it."  
  


Ifan got up, slowly. "Don't do anything senseless."  
  


"This is the most sensible act of my life. I cannot step aside and watch the ascension of an unqualified Divine."  
  


His greatsword was still in the other room, but as he held on to the dragonling with one hand, he lit a fireball with the other. I don't know if he let himself be overtaken or not, but Sebille was behind him in a flash, and forced him down to his knees with her dagger at his throat.   
  


The dragonling roared and made to attack Sebille, but the Red Prince spoke a word to her and she settled down, growling.   
  


"You have one chance to cooperate," hissed Sebille.   
  


Ifan sighed and lowered his crossbow. "I'll ask again. Two choices."  
  


The Red Prince glared at him. "Then I must choose the one who might destroy me by degrees, rather than razing me to the ground. Safiya."  
  


"You've got my vote, too," Ifan told me. "Sorry, Sebille."  
  


Sebille stepped back, but didn't sheathe her blade. "Kindly get out of my sight, both of you," she spat.  
  


I didn't need to be told twice. I hurried back to my room with the Red Prince in tow.  
  


"That went well," he said dryly.  
  


I tugged on my hair. "What was the point of starting a fight?"  
  


"I could hardly seem eager to install you as the Divine, could I? The last thing I need is to arouse suspicion now, in the final stretch."  
  


"What if she'd just cut your throat then and there?" I asked.  
  


"Then I imagine your life would be made much simpler." The dragonling broke from his arms and fluttered sleepily around the room.  
  


"You don't think you just scarred your daughter for life, seeing you with a knife to your neck?"  
  


"She is of my line—and a dragon besides. She is not so easily rattled."  
  


I folded my arms and started to get ready for bed. "She's two days old."  
  


The Red Prince scoffed. "How many unhappy memories did you make before your first year, that haunt you still?"  
  


"None," I shrugged. "Whatever you think is best."  
  


"Music to my ears."  
  


"What if I killed you?"  
  


He blinked. "You are most welcome to try. Perhaps I was right after all," he went on, smiling slowly, "and you _are_ an agent of the Shadow Prince, playing a very subtle game."  
  


"Don't you fucking well start with that again," I warned.  
  


"No, I invite you to try. Truly. I haven't been subject to a respectable assassination attempt in a long while."  
  


"Look—"  
  


"Here," he said, drawing a long, sharp stiletto dagger from his belt. "From the vault of that miserly Paladin. One well-placed strike with this, and the Red Prince passes into history."  
  


I watched, dazed, as he set the dagger down on my nightstand. "There's something wrong with you," I said. "Do you know that there's something very wrong with you?"  
  


"I give myself up now to the folly of trust. I trust you completely, and without question," he said matter-of-factly. "And if I am alive in the morning, _never_ tell me that I forced this upon you. I left you the escape, and you chose not to use it."  
  


"So you do feel guilty," I said. "I wish you would just say so, instead of acting like an idiot about it."  
  


"Goodnight, Safiya."  
  


"What, so if I don't _murder_ you, that means you didn't do anything wrong after all? Does that seem sensible to you?" I picked up the dagger and drew back to fling it across the room, but I felt its weight in my hand and the strength went out of me. With a substantial _thud_ I set it back down on the nightstand. "Go to hell."  
  


I took off my boots, climbed into bed and lay with my eyes wide open and my hands folded on top of the covers until the sun rose.  
  


Once or twice I glanced over at him. I tried to remember the first time I saw him asleep. I think it was just after we escaped Fort Joy, and we were all holed up in the Sanctuary of Amadia. I had a hard time, in the days after my first 'kill', the way Ifan put it. I would be up early, and I passed by him once or twice, very prim—not a scale out of place, so to speak, and always a bladed weapon within arm's reach. Ready to jump into action, to fend off an attack, if necessary.   
  


He's gotten sloppier since then, day by day—that night in the elven camp, he dared to sleep naked while I was completely dressed. I woke up with my arm pinned beneath his head, and his claws snagged in my robe. Tonight I saw him the way I've come to know him, curled up peacefully on his side, his sword forgotten in the other corner of the room, with one arm under his head, the covers tangled in his legs, his mouth half-open. Nothing elegant about him.  
  


(The dragonling had squashed itself haphazardly into the loose circle of his arms, and rested there.)  
  


Humiliating. I still, still, still felt weak when I looked at him. I picked up the dagger a few times and set it down again, but I wasn't going to do it. He _knew_ I wasn't going to do it; that's why he was sleeping like a fucking stone.  
  


I wish you were here. I wish Amadia was still in my head. I wish I'd drowned on the Merryweather, I wish I was one year ago, waiting for you outside the city theatre with a bunch of flowers bigger than my head, I miss you so much. I'll write you tomorrow.  
  


All my love,  
Safiya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I give myself up now to the folly of trust" roll credits


	25. Day 53

Ula—

Two things. 

1) I'm back on the Lady Vengeance, sailing for the Ancient fucking Empire.

2) I ascended, by which I mean that I consumed a fuckload of Source, more than I thought existed, more than I could stand, and now I'm Divine.  
  


Both of these things went against my better judgement. I'm not bothered to write a detailed account, since you're dead, and I got on this ship to escape all the scholars and believers who wanted a word with their new Divine. I'm not proud of it, but it feels good to be out on the open sea, unreachable.  
  


Anyway.  
  


The four of us set out early this morning, and walked north to the Cathedral. The air was biting; it was getting to be winter. I thought about stopping to buy a cloak somewhere, but I decided to wait and see if I survived the day first.  
  


As usual, the smell in the front hall was overbearing—the scent of stale blood wafted up from the pools below the bridge that led toward the Path.  
  


One woman crossed the bridge just as we came inside, and we watched the prayer chamber seal itself behind her. Her chanting stopped abruptly.  
  


I checked, and double-checked, and triple-checked that we had both the amulet and the scroll on hand, and my teeth still chattered when we went inside, because I was sure I was going to die.  
  


You and I grew up in the shadow of this big beautiful slaughterhouse—like any sane citizens of Arx, we fear the Path of Blood and the judgement of Lucian Who Is Divine. Sebille and the Red Prince just walked inside, cool as you please. Only Ifan had the decency to shuffle his feet a little. "Come on," he said, shooting me a half-hearted smile. "We're burning daylight."  
  


I hesitated. He squeezed my shoulder. Side by side we walked into Sanders' death trap.  
  


The chamber was small and sparse; it was obviously an entryway to somewhere more important. Lucian's marble figure loomed above us, poised behind a large, bare altar.  
  


Nothing remained of the woman who'd gone in minutes before, except a dark smudge on the floor, like you get when you wipe a charcoal mark with your finger. I shuddered and straightened my back, forcing myself to be calm.  
  


The Scroll and the amulet got us through. The rest isn't important.  
  


Do you know who we found in the heart of Lucian's tomb? Lucian—alive and well. (Yes, really.) I'd never seen him, outside of maybe a woodcut in a history book somewhere, but there was light bordering his body and pouring from his eyes, and the nearer I got, the stronger was that gut-churning feeling of Source-thick air. There was more power in this man than I could wrap my head around.  
  


Ifan stopped us the moment he understood who, and what, he was looking at. "I'm not going to let him live," he said.  
  


"Oh, good!" said Sebille. "Me neither."  
  


"He's the _Divine!"_ I hissed. "And he's not dead! I want to talk to him."  
  


Lucian greeted us with the detached warmth of a king greeting his subjects—except Ifan. He had a real smile for Ifan. "My finest soldier," he said.  
  


Ifan grimaced and ran the back of his hand over his mouth. "I killed your son, Lucian."  
  


The Divine sighed, as if he was only slightly disappointed. "Ah."  
  


"You used me. You sent me into that mission blind. Worse than blind. I thought—"  
  


"It was not an easy decision," said Lucian slowly, "but it needed doing, and there was no one more able."  
  


"To sl—to slaughter my people," said Ifan roughly.  
  


"To carry out an _order._ " Lucian smiled. "You did me proud." Wordlessly, Ifan raised his crossbow. Lucian looked calmly back at him, even though the bolt was level with his head. "I understand your anger," he said. "Listen to me. Hear what I have to say, and then decide whether your need for revenge outweighs the good of Rivellon." He gestured. "Dallis?"  
  


Dallis was at his right hand—unmasked, she was Undead. Eternal, that is. She'd been working with Lucian—gathering all the world's Source to seal the Veil between us and the Void. Four Godwoken were the last thing she needed to keep the Voidwoken at bay forever.  
  


"Of course," she explained, "robbed of your Source, the four of you will be rendered Silent Monks. . .but the world will be set right again, _finally._ Isn't that worth something?"  
  


Here was something we hadn't planned for. "No more Voidwoken?" I asked uncertainly.   
  


"Correct," said Dallis. "My corrupted kin will be sealed in their hell for good."  
  


"And this God King?" asked the Red Prince. "It is him I must be rid of. Those overgrown insects are beneath my notice."  
  


"Powerless." Dallis folded her hands. "Unable to act on Rivellon."  
  


"And who will rule?" asked Sebille.   
  


Lucian turned his blinding gaze on her. "The nations will rule over themselves, as they ever have done. I will be the Divine in name only."  
  


Sebille scowled. "That's convenient."  
  


I dug my fingers into my arms until it hurt. "Your Holiness."  
  


"That," smiled Lucian, "is a title I have not heard for some time. Speak, Godwoken."  
  


"My name is Safiya bin-Zayna."  
  


Lucian raised his eyebrows and looked in Ifan's direction. Ifan steadfastly ignored him. "Ah. Speak, then, Safiya bin-Zayna."  
  


"Well—where does the spirit of a Silent Monk go? When it's been Purged?"  
  


"An unpleasant question, but I will answer." Lucian sighed. "The spirit is Source, and Purging tears the Source from the body without distinguishing between the magical stores of a Sourcerer and the essence of the being. At best, the result is a fractured spirit. At worst, there remains no spirit to speak of."  
  


My heart dropped—for me and for you. "Can. . .is it possible to put a fractured spirit together again?"  
  


Dallis cut in. "Don't stake your hopes on that possibility. If you sacrifice your Source here and now, you sacrifice your self. There is no getting around that."  
  


"But you will be martyrs," reasoned Lucian. "Four Godwoken, who gave of themselves to seal the Veil at long last."  
  


Ifan looked into the eyes of the Divine, unwavering. "I've thrown my lot in with yours before," he said coolly. "I'll be god-damned if I give up my soul to put a man like you in charge again."  
  


Lucian gave him that baleful look again, a disappointed father. "I understand," he said. "And the rest of your company?"  
  


"I am no one's company," said the Red Prince, straightening. "My Empire is more than fit to ward away the Void. I refuse to cede my Source to any grasping human despot."  
  


"And to hell with the rest of Rivellon?" I snapped.  
  


The Red Prince glanced at me. "Even the gods knew to keep their spheres narrow."  
  


"And look where it got them." I wiped my clammy hands on my robe.   
  


"I hate to interrupt," said Sebille. "But I have a creeping feeling His Murderous Holiness won't let us leave as easily as all that. What happens if we don't agree to be Purged?"  
  


"Make no mistake, Godwoken," said Dallis, turning her empty eyesockets on Sebille. "Your Source will seal the Veil, one way or another. You have only the option of doing the right thing, or struggling like petulant children against the inevitable."  
  


"It seems you have a bit of a struggle on your hands, then. I'm rather attached to my spirit." Sebille shrugged innocently. "I might have to lance your throat open, Holiest One, so that you choke on your blood. That seems fitting, in the sad absence of any Deathfog."  
  


Lucian shook his head, but said nothing. "Three have spoken," he sighed at last. "One keeps her silence."  
  


"I won't fight. Purge me," I said, and pressed my lips together, so I wouldn't follow it with anything stupid. I almost didn't mind the idea of becoming a Monk. Wherever the pieces of your soul drifted off to, I might go after them. Didn't love the idea of my body being left to shamble. "If you kill my body after," I added.  
  


"One of you has some sense, at least." Dallis touched the wand that was holstered at her hip, the same wand she'd used to drain the Well of Ascension. It glowed, nearly overflowing with Source.

But before she could do anything, the figure at her flank interrupted.   
  


He was dressed head to toe in dark robes, and wore a heavy cowl, so you couldn't make out anything about him. He had the build of a human, and was short for a man, roughly my height. I'd seen him with Dallis when she attacked the Lady Vengeance—he must have been a very powerful mage, because he had called meteor showers and rains of fire from the sky.  
  


It was this little man who interrupted us, throwing off his cowl and declaring himself to be—are you ready?—Braccus Rex, the Source King revived. Now an agent of the God King. I didn't believe him until the room around us fell away and we found ourselves standing on a huge, rocky platform that seemed to float in a black abyss. Rex had summoned a beast like a serpent, but _enormous,_ its long body higher than the Cathedral, each frill on its massive neck the size of a boat-sail. He'd called a gaggle of his friends from the Void: Lord Kemm, still in shining gold armor, his beard, like Trompdoy's, mysteriously clinging to his lack of a face; the dwarven Queen's advisor, who had meant to flood all of Arx with Deathfog, in glittering robes, heavy with jewelry; and the emaciated creature we'd fought on the Nameless Isle, that had given us all a blood-plague.  
  


The ground trembled. Panicked, the dragonling tore her way out of the Red Prince's pack, scattering his things across the stone floor, and hovered above us.  
  


I didn't do very much fighting. The giant serpent screamed and spewed fire—I busied myself putting up barriers of Source and ice—there wasn't even time to heal, unless I could do it from a distance and while my target was running around, dodging blows. We were fighting an unbelievable enemy—but we had two unbelievable allies. Lucian seemed to fly across the battlefield, with his heavy axe in flames, and brought down the plague-beast and the Queen's advisor within the first few minutes of the fight.   
  


Dallis, for her part, turned into a dragon.  
  


But Lucian found himself in the path of the serpent's fire-breath, and Dallis' huge white wings crumpled under a volley of boulders that Braccus Rex sent hailing from the sky. Sebille climbed the back of the serpent, the way she had done with the Void-worm on the beach of Reaper's Eye. I held my breath. If her arms faltered, or her feet slipped, she would fall into the nothingness. But she hung on and drove her blades into its broad, flat head over and over. It shrieked and stopped its fire-breathing as it whipped its head around to try and dislodge her. Rex, meanwhile, had decided to turn his attention to me. I raised a barrier in time to keep myself from being crushed by the brittle, flaming meteors he called down.   
  


I backed away, feverish, and searched for some source of water—and I felt it, hundreds and hundreds of feet below us, a clear, icy pool. I gripped my staff hard enough to hurt and focused on pulling up all that water, all that way, as burdensome as it was. Something shimmered above me, and I looked up to see an army of icicles, diamondlike and deadly-sharp. I dropped them, as precisely as I could, all onto Rex. He broke into bone fragments. The noise was deafening. Dozens of sharp splinters whirled and tore up my arms and legs.  
  


With its master gone, the serpent descended, and there was absolute quiet. I looked around. Sebille had leapt down from the monster's head just in time, and sheathed both her daggers after casting a glance around. There was a pink burn down the length of her neck, and her hair was utterly singed. Ifan was trying and failing to stand on a shattered leg.   
  


There was an altar in the room—a simple, rectangular stone altar. I walked toward it. The Red Prince walked beside me, holding the dragonling tightly with one arm while the other hung limp.  
  


"Is she OK?" I asked.  
  


"Perfectly unharmed," he assured me. "She was more engaged flitting about than being of any aid, but so much the better."  
  


I put my hand on the face of the stone slab, and felt an ocean of Source all around, thrashing just beneath the surface. "I'm afraid," I said, trying to hold back tears.  
  


"Why is that?" he asked, in that gentle tone I'd missed so much.   
  


"I can't," I blubbered. "I don't know how to be this. I'll ruin it."  
  


"Come with me to the Empire."  
  


"— _what?"_ I turned to him, shocked out of my tears.   
  


"The moment we leave here, join me on the Lady Vengeance and we'll sail for the Ancient Empire."  
  


I took my hand away from the altar. "Are you mad? _Why?_ "  
  


"We can sort through the early stages of Divinity together—on the open sea, where no one will be the wiser. And when we come to the harbour, I'll show you the wonders of the Forbidden City."  
  


"I can't leave Arx," I said desperately. "This is Lucian's town—and mine."  
  


He smiled halfway. "It will be here when you return."  
  


"Hesthas—"  
  


"Beloved. Safiya. I don't want to be parted from you. Not yet."  
  


Well. You already know how this ends. It ends with me, an idiot, on a ship.  
  


"You don't know what you want," I said. I shut my eyes, held my breath and touched the altar, allowing that endless power to rush into my soul. It was like dying. I thought I was dead.  
  


I came back to my senses in the room where we'd met Lucian and Dallis. I felt different—like my feet weren't touching the ground, except they were; like my heart was racing, except it wasn't.  
  


"Little help, your Holiness?" called Ifan, with a pained grin. I walked toward him. His leg was in bad shape—something, a spell, an impact, had pulverized the bone. I swallowed hard. If I managed to fix this, it would be the most difficult piece of healing I'd ever done.  
  


When I closed my eyes, though, everything made sense. The horrible complex puzzle of the body became as simple as stacking bricks. I moved my hands away not a second later and looked up to see Ifan staring at me with wide green eyes.   
  


I got to my feet and held out a hand to help him up—which was a stupid thing to do; he'd have bowled me over. There was no way I could have pulled him up on my own strength. But I did. Easily.  
  


"Look at that," smiled Sebille. "Like a fish to water, sweetest."  
  


I studied her. "Do you want me to look at that burn?" I asked.  
  


"No," she beamed, and turned her head, showing it off to me. The burn crawled up the side of her neck and twisted the skin of her right cheek, making her slave scar mangled, meaningless. "I'll keep it like this, thank you." Sebille reached back and touched her hair—it was charred, and crackled like dry grass under her hand. She unsheathed one of her daggers, ran it along her thigh to wipe off the blood, and cut off the remains of her hair. Now it was short and choppy, like that of a fresh soldier. It suited her.  
  


"What happens now?" I asked.  
  


"I'm sure Arx is dying to meet its new Divine," said Ifan.  
  


My blood froze. "I can't. I'm not ready."  
  


"You might have thought of that before you ascended," snipped Sebille.  
  


"No, I—" I racked my brain. "I need to know that I have control over this, and—the city doesn't know there's a new Divine. Or that the gods are dead. And no one needs to tell them just yet, I—I'll go off and make a proper Divine of myself, and then. You know. Present myself."  
  


Ifan folded his arms. "You think the Void'll just wait around while you find yourself, Saf?"  
  


"I don't know. I don't know."  
  


"Speak with Arhu," suggested the Red Prince. "Make yourself known to him, and give him whatever orders you have. Then disappear, if you must."  
  


We trudged back up to the blood-scented hall of the Cathedral. The others waited there while I found the high priest's quarters. I knocked gingerly on the door.  
  


"I will not be disturbed," came Arhu's flat voice.  
  


"It's—er—Safiya bin-Zayna. We met in Lord Kemm's. . .estate. I need to speak with you."  
  


"Come in, then," he sighed.  
  


I came in. I didn't get the chance to speak. He looked into my face, covered his mouth and fell to his knees. "Gods have mercy," he whispered.  
  


"I'm sorry?" I asked.  
  


Arhu clasped his hands. "I have looked often enough into Lucian's face to see the Source dancing behind his eyes. As I see it now with you, my lady."  
  


 _My lady._ "Oh. Well—I wanted to ask for your help."  
  


"Of course—of course!" He looked about him, frantically, then sprung toward his desk and grabbed a quill and a sheaf of paper. "We have a Divine again. The gods are good. The people need to know!"  
  


I cleared my throat. "That's what I'm here about. The city can't know that I've ascended. I'm not ready."  
  


"What?" spluttered Arhu. "But you were Godwoken! You've spent your life in training, have you not?"  
  


"I have _not,_ " I emphasised. "I didn't know. And now I'm not ready. Please. Let me go and learn a little more. I'll come back before the summer ends."  
  


"Mine is not to question the judgement of the Divine," said Arhu, spearing me with a look of disappointment all the same. "I know you will keep your word."  
  


I breathed in. "I want the Cathedral to give the decree that the Divine Order should reorganise. The Magisters and the Seekers will answer to the Paladins, and guard the city from Voidwoken at any cost. I want Ifan ben-Mezd—Lucian's old general—to lead."  
  


He nodded slowly. "If that is your will."  
  


"Thank you. I'm going to set sail today."  
  


"Gods speed you, Divine Safiya bin-Zayna."  
  


It all happened very quickly after that. I said goodbye to Ifan and Sebille. I found a warehouse and paid a few workers very well to load supplies onto the Lady Vengeance.  
  


The Red Prince was waiting for me on the shore. Quietly, he looked into my face. "You're glowing."  
  


I shrugged. "Yeah. Source. Arhu said the same thing."  
  


"Not with Source. With authority. With power." He tilted his head, hefting the dragonling up higher in his good arm.   
  


"Let's just get on the ship," I said. We climbed up the ramp. There was a small crew of sailors hauling the long, broad plank up onto the deck—I didn't know who had hired them, nor did I care. The Red Prince must have given the word to the Lady Vengeance to set off, because she heaved a great sigh and then bore down into the water.  
  


I took Dallis' old quarters and lay down on the double bed. Someone sat beside me.   
  


"Give me your arm," I sighed, and sat upright. "I wish you would speak up when you're injured."  
  


"You had other priorities," said the Red Prince, wincing as I took his arm.   
  


"Sure—whatever you say."  
  


I could feel him watching me as I worked. "You look beautiful."  
  


I said nothing. I dropped his arm when I was finished healing—it didn't take long, it was a single break at the shoulder. And I was a hundred times more powerful now. "Please leave me be."  
  


"You must be exhausted," he said, and brushed the hair from my forehead with the backs of his fingers.  
  


"Don't," I said, although I was leaning into his touch. "We'll—talk about all this later."  
  


I didn't listen to his response. I curled up in the bed with my boots still on and slept.


	26. Day 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is (briefly) NSFW!

It wasn't until I woke up that I started to realise exactly what an incredible shithead I was. It came slowly at first, and then all at once I remembered that I had postponed the most important duty in the world in order to follow at the heels of a lizard Prince, who must have wanted me along for his amusement as he sailed off to meet the love of his life. I wanted to throw myself over the railing.  
  


Instead, I left the cabin and went out to the top deck for a bit of air. The Red Prince was talking to someone—a member of the new crew—near the prow of the ship. "Good morning, Safiya," he told me when I came near, as if nothing was wrong.  
  


"Can I have a word?" I asked him, and glanced at the strange sailor. She was a human woman with scarred, sunbaked skin. She nodded briskly and walked off. "I don't understand why you dragged me with you."  
  


He peered at me. "You regret your decision."  
  


"My _decision?"_ I flared. "I was reeling. I was drowning, and—and you told me I could—put it all off, just for a bit. What sort of a decision is that?"  
  


"Even if we grant—purely for the sake of argument—that I forced Divinity on you, am I now the culprit by proxy of every mistake you are doomed to make in your very long life? I've made a god of you, not a Silent Monk. You have your will."  
  


"I want to leave."  
  


"You'll have to wait until we make port," shrugged the Red Prince. Tentatively, he added: "Why?"  
  


My face burned. "Because I don't know what you want."  
  


"I've made it ex—"  
  


"You said you wanted to help me sort this out. Then it was you just didn't want to be parted from me. What do you want?" I was trying and failing to keep my voice under control. "And what do you think'll happen when we reach the Empire? Do you want to add me to your fucking treasury?"  
  


The boat rocked, crowded by high, temperamental waves. Several sailors stumbled about on the heaving deck.  
  


"It's bullshit what you've done to me," I went on. "You _know_ that. And now I'm meant to spend my life like this?"  
  


I felt seasick—or—dizzy, at any rate, as if the sky was pushing down on me. The waves sounded suddenly far away.   
  


The Red Prince stepped toward the railing and looked down over the side of the boat. He motioned for me to look, as well.   
  


We were hundreds and hundreds of feet above the surface of the ocean, being pushed upward by a massive column of water, like an enormous geyser.  
  


"What in the Void?" I said, faintly. "Is that—" My heart dropped. "This isn't me, is it? That's not me doing that."  
  


"As of yesterday, you are likely the most powerful Hydrosophist alive, and certainly the most powerful Sourcerer. Why should this not be your doing?" He sounded. . .proud. Not at all bothered by the fact that we were hovering precariously on a huge fountain-stream, and that if we fell, the ship would be wrecked instantly.  
  


"I can't stop it. Is it because I got upset? Am I going to cause a natural fucking disaster every time I—"  
  


"Safiya." He took my hands. I allowed it. "It's through your power that we are up here. It will be through your power that we come down again."  
  


"I don't know how."  
  


The cold was biting, so high up. Sharp winds threw my hair aside, blowing sea-damp curls into my face. Smiling—still unshakeable—the Red Prince moved a bit of my hair out of the way, only for it to go flying again a moment later. "You must be expending no small amount of energy," he said. "Can you feel it?"  
  


I closed my eyes. "Yes," I said. The feeling was strange, in the back of my head, like I was straining a muscle that didn't exist. "It feels easy. I could throw us across the ocean."  
  


"One thing at a time, my Divine." He held onto me by my arms—and I held onto him. For support. I told myself it was for support. "Let go."  
  


"I can't. I can't—"  
  


"It's all right. I have you." I'd never heard him speak so sweetly—not even in the hold of the Lady Vengeance that night—not even with Sadha. "Set us down softly. We're a paperweight of emerald."  
  


"You are so frilly," I laughed. I couldn't help it. "My paperweights at home were the bits of clay that broke off my roof tiles."  
  


"For my own frilly purposes, we are an emerald," he said, trying to be firm, but holding back a laugh. "Come. The place from which your spell has sprung—release it. Slowly."  
  


I took deep breaths and focused on relaxing that piece of my mind where I felt the Source bubbling, like unballing a fist. Gradually, the chill went out of the air, and the smell of salt water came back. We hit the water with a tremendous splash, but before we could capsize, the ship shuddered and righted itself.  
  


"Sourcerer!" cried one of the sailors, once we were steady, levelling an accusing finger at me. "We've got a Sourcerer on board!"  
  


"You have two," said the Red Prince, stepping forward. "If you like your chances, by all means, draw your blade."  
  


"We can't fight our crew!" I protested, and stepped out from behind him. "Listen," I told the sailor—it was the same rough-faced woman from before. "I don't want any trouble. Double your pay when we dock in the Empire, if you keep quiet about this."  
  


The sailor scratched the side of her nose and backed off. "Keep the ship in the damn water. Send her soaring into the air again, no amount of coin is going to change my mind."  
  


I nodded eagerly. "Understood. Sorry."  
  


"I suppose that salary will be coming out of my coffers?" said the Red Prince, under his breath.  
  


"Yes," I said brightly. Then: "That was frightening." And I burst into tears. I ran inside, fumbling with the cabin door, and fell onto the bed.  
  


Not a minute passed before I heard a painfully polite knock on the door.   
  


I sat up and wiped my nose on my sleeve. "You know it's open."  
  


The Red Prince stepped inside and sat beside me. He reached out to touch my cheek, hesitated, and drew his hand back again.  
  


"Is she all right, the little one?" I asked. "I must have scared her."  
  


He smiled. "While the ship was aloft, she was knocking about in the galley, terrorising the cooks. As far as she's concerned, nothing happened at all."  
  


"Good." I breathed out. I had a horrible headache. I don't know if it was from crying or from expending enough Source to keep a thousand-tonne ship suspended in the air.   
  


His hand brushed against my knee, in passing this time, maybe on accident, but it was enough. I moved closer, throwing my arms around him so forcefully I toppled us onto the bed, face to face. He put one hand in the small of my back, pulling me close, and with the other smoothed my hair out of my face.   
  


"I don't know how I'm going to do this," I said roughly.  
  


He caressed the line of my jaw, running his thumb back and forth across my cheek. "You don't need to know. Not now, at all events—not after one day."  
  


"You're not going to be there to talk me down every time."  
  


"I don't see why I shouldn't be." He swallowed and touched my mouth with the pad of his thumb, gently parting my lips. "I've missed you," he added, offhandedly.  
  


I moved his hand away, just as gently, and frowned. "I haven't gone anywhere."  
  


"No?"  
  


" _You've_ gone," I said, remembering how fucking angry I was, and starting to pull away. "You did all this to me for Sadha's sake."  
  


He sat up, watching me apprehensively. "I was honest with you about Sadha. From the very first."  
  


"I _know_ that." I sighed. I leaned in, closed my eyes and kissed a trail down the soft side of his throat. Maybe my favourite place on his body—there, or the insides of his thighs. He groaned, like I knew he would. "I keep thinking of the dream plane," I breathed, "outside the Empire's embassy—when you caught sight of her, and you picked her up and spun her around. I've never seen you look happier."  
  


"Safiya—"  
  


"I don't. . .want to talk," I said. I turned away from him and lay back, leaning into his chest. "I want. . .not to talk. I want you."  
  


"You're certain?" he whispered into my ear.   
  


"Please," I said. His hand had wandered down to the hem of my robe, and when I gave the word, he pulled the heavy body of fabric up past my waist, and undid the button on my trousers. I bit my lip as his hand moved lower, and he ran his finger along my slit, where I was already wet.  
  


"My word," he said under his breath, and the low rumble of his voice in my ear made me shiver. I ground my hips up into his hand. "Is that for me?"  
  


" _Yes_ , you arse," I said. I breathed in sharply when his finger started to draw slow, leisurely circles. He moved his free hand under my robe and cupped one of my breasts, sliding his thumb beneath my bra to trace the same lazy circles over my nipple. I was breathless already. He paused his circling to pull lightly on my piercing and I felt the jolt of pain between my legs. I sighed and let my head loll onto his shoulder. My hands dug into the muscle of his thighs. I pushed my body back, wanting to feel him against me, his firmness, his warmth. I came quietly.  
  


Carefully, he withdrew his hands, and I missed them immediately. I turned back toward him. He snared me with his flame-coloured eyes, and—without ever looking away—brought his right hand to his mouth. My face burned. He licked down the glistening length of his finger, tasting me.   
  


My mouth was dry. "What exactly are you doing?"  
  


He paused his work and grinned at me, baring a series of sharp teeth. "What does it look like, my beloved? Savouring."  
  


When he was satisfied, he dried his hand idly on the end of his shirt—and I found my breath again. "OK," I said, still flustered, and braced my hands on his chest.  
  


"One moment," he said, slowly moving my hands away.  
  


"Hesthas—"  
  


"Safiya." He hadn't let go of my hands. "There are a thousand more engaging ways to spend this time than to talk—but—"  
  


"But?" I demanded.  
  


"I don't want to keep grieving you," he said, haltingly. "If you prefer, you might disembark at the next port. We could return to Arx, even. We aren't so far out."  
  


I was touched. I smiled crookedly at our joined hands. "What about helping me with this fucking ocean of Source I have now?"  
  


"No one else in the world has a fraction of your power, now. At that point, any half-witted street Sourcerer could advise you as well as I."  
  


"OK," I repeated, slowly. "And teaching me to fight?"  
  


"If you say the word to Arhu, you will have your choice—instructors—blacksmiths—all of it. And it goes without saying that, once I regain my throne, every resource I have is at your disposal."  
  


I poked my tongue into the side of my cheek, considering. "All this because I'm the Divine."  
  


"Because I love you," he said harshly. I lifted my head. He looked me in the eye for several endless seconds, and then glanced past me. "And—I love Sadha. And I see how that grieves you."  
  


I laughed bitterly. "Is that news to you?"  
  


"No," he said. "I should have done this months ago."  
  


My gaze fell back down, to my hands in his, and I dreaded the moment when we would have to separate, and I would wipe my clammy palms on my robe, knowing I would never touch him again. "I'm not going anywhere," I said, a little hoarsely. "In a few months, we're going to moor in the harbour of the Ancient Empire, and you'll go off, and marry, and be the Emperor—and I'll have to be the Divine. But until then, we—we're here, aren't we?"  
  


"True enough," he said, uncertainly.  
  


I raised his hand to my mouth—Sadha's ring was on his finger, splendid with rubies. I kissed the golden band. "Just a few months," I breathed. "Just a few months until everything comes down around us. I fucking love you too, by the way."  
  


We lay side by side on Dallis' double bed for what felt like hours, although it was probably minutes. Finally, the Red Prince left to check on the dragonling, and I lay there and thought about how I was an even bigger shithead now than I was this morning.  
  


Still, I'm going to grab whatever time we have until the Empire looms, and hold onto it as well as I can, because every day afterward is going to be worthless.  
  


Safiya


	27. Day 139 (I think. I might have lost count once or twice)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> romance. disgusting

I'm sailing back for Arx. Alone. The winter was just beginning when we set out, and now it's the height of spring—which gives me another three months to get back before Arhu starts to wonder what's keeping me.  
  


Things have been good. Things have been so good, I was afraid to write them down. I thought I might fuck it all up by thinking over it too much, or by thinking of the wrong things—how much I missed you, how quickly all of this was going to come to an end.  
  


I'm not at all bad with a quarterstaff now, despite my finger. The Red Prince and I spent nearly every day sparring. It was terrifyingly easy to slip into a routine, now that there was no imminent threat on our heels. We'd wake up, eat something, spend a few hours with the dragonling—oh! She can talk, a little. She could understand spoken language almost from the beginning—I taught her a little Common, and a little Elvish (I think it'd be nice if the next rulers of the Ancient Empire spoke Elvish, don't you?). I read to her from Dallis' history books. Dry stuff, but she would claw her way into my lap and curl up and didn't seem to mind that the events of the Fourth Grain War in 809 Deorum weren't all that interesting. And she's _big_ , now! She grew like a bean sprout! At this rate  
  


Sorry, I'm all over the place, aren't I? I was talking about we'd fallen into a routine. It was we'd wake up; eat something; spend a few hours with the dragonling; spar (and not gently. I had bruises daily—not the Prince's doing, with his perfectly controlled strikes, but mine when I tripped myself or cracked the end of the staff into my foot); laze around, pace the ship, maybe, while the dragonling swooped and wheeled about in the sky over our heads, training her wings, or maybe we'd lie with tangled limbs in Dallis' bed, talking about nothing; we'd eat again; and we'd put the dragonling to bed. Most days she was affectionate, and wanted to curl up between us. I was always worried I'd crush her in my sleep, but it never happened. Other days, though, she was aloof in a very dragonish way, and perched on top of one of the bookshelves, or the writing desk, so that she could survey the room. On days like that, I wondered if I'd done something to upset her, but the Red Prince, half-asleep, would kiss my neck and murmur that this sort of thing was only to be expected.  
  


It's a gift, Ula, being able to wake up next to the same person, every morning, for months. I don't think you and I ever went more than a few weeks without you having to tour, or me having to attend a stupid gallery event out of town. Maybe it made us appreciate our time together more. I don't know. I would have done anything to have this with you.  
  


Oh: we stopped in a small, humid port town—our last stop—a few weeks ago, and I had word that the Divine Order, under the command of one Ifan ben-Mezd, was making strides in the fight against the Void. I felt better hearing that. I was glad Ifan had taken on the job, even though I didn't so much as warn him beforehand. I hope he doesn't resent me. I'll find out when I'm back in Arx. Then, I guess, the real fight begins.  
  


But I still haven't told you what today was like.   
  


We'd been able to see the glittering coast of the Ancient Empire for days; indistinct at first, a greyish landmass in the distance, but as the hours crept by, you could pick out narrow sandstone towers and marble columns supporting heavy temple roofs. Yesterday at sunset, the Red Prince pointed out the high walls of the Forbidden City, hung everywhere with lanterns, behind which was his palace. I couldn't sleep. I stayed out on the top deck until the sky was black and the moon had risen, casting the entirety of the ship in a white, dreamlike light.  
  


I didn't have to turn around to know he was there, not after so many days and nights together. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" said the Red Prince quietly, putting his arm around my waist.  
  


"I've been waiting for the lights to go out," I said, looking out over the water, at the tiny yellow points of oil lanterns and braziers. "But they don't go out, do they?"  
  


"No. The City is alive at all hours." I could feel him trying to find the right thing to say next. He decided against it. "Safiya," he began, finally.  
  


"Mm."  
  


"Come to bed."  
  


I had a million protests ready—I wanted to keep admiring the view, and the sun was going to rise soon anyway, and I wasn't tired, and—and if I went to sleep, I would have to let him leave in the morning.  
  


Instead, I blinked away the beginnings of tears and said, "All right."  
  


We snuck back into the cabin, hand in hand, and I took off my boots, and we curled up beneath the sheets, just the same way as usual.   
  


The dragonling was the first one to wake—she must have heard the sailors talking. She pounced from her perch on the bookshelf and threw her full bulk directly onto my stomach, thoroughly knocking the wind out of me.  
  


"Good morning, baby," I wheezed, stroking her down the length of her back, playing my fingers across her small, blunt spines. She chirred faintly at me.  
  


"I imagine we're about to dock?" grinned the Red Prince, who had been on the receiving end of the fearsome gut-pounce many times.  
  


"Must be," I said. "You'd better get ready."  
  


I pulled on my scuffed boots as I watched him dress. His shirt had very clearly been meant for a farmer, or a labourer, anyway; an unseamed square of linen, stitched simply along the sides. His greaves were tarnished and still had bits of blood-rust in their hollows, despite his best efforts. And his poor sword, which he sheathed on his back now for the first time in weeks, had been in bad shape from the very beginning. He cleaned it carefully every other day—so it sparkled—but it was missing a few chips, and the bronze haft was blackened, except where the grip of his hands had burnished it back to a butter-yellow colour.  
  


"You look good," I said. It was true.   
  


"Really?" he smirked. "Am I resplendent in my peasant's rags? Have I the look of the Prince of the House of War?"  
  


I rose from the bed and fixed the collar of his shirt, as if that would make a difference. "You have the look of someone who's faced a load of trials and come through them all."  
  


"I suppose I must content myself with that." He pulled me close. We held onto one another. It felt like we might never part, until we felt the ship bump against something and go still—and one of the sailors called down to us.  
  


I pulled away, refusing to look in his direction. "Er—are you missing anything?" I asked, casting a glance around the room.  
  


"Nothing," he said, and scooped the dragonling into his arms. She was heavier than a calf by now, but she still liked to be held. He whispered a phrase to her, one I know. Something like _'come with me'_. (I've been picking up bits of the Ancient Empire's tongue. I thought it might be useful down the line.)  
  


The coastline had been beautiful at night, but it was vibrant during the day, filled to the brim with colours and people. Other ships floated in the harbour, none of them half the size of the Lady Vengeance. The sailors had already moored the ship and hauled up the boarding plank.  
  


"I—" I started to say, but my voice caught in my throat.  
  


Realising that she was being taken somewhere and that I wasn't coming, the dragonling growled and leapt from his arms, flying full force at me. She latched onto the sleeve of my robe with her claws and tried to pull me along. I say tried, but she actually dragged me forward a few staggering steps.  
  


" _I'm not coming with you, baby,_ " I said, softly, in Elvish. " _Be good, all right? Go with your father._ "  
  


She dug her claws in deeper, soundly skewering my arm. I tried not to cry out as I unstuck her and held her out to the Red Prince. My arms trembled—she's too heavy for me to hold anymore.  
  


The Red Prince took her from me, closed her in his arms and spoke to the dragonling in the soothing, patient tone he reserved for her. She wormed unhappily and tossed her head in my direction, but she wasn't going to fly away again.   
  


He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled. "I'm certain the Divine will have much to discuss with the Empire before long. When she comes, I will receive her as my guest of honour."  
  


And that was all. I watched him as he disembarked, and then disappeared down a busy main street.  
  


Ynga, the boatswain (the woman with the rough face) is taking most of the others down to the market to buy supplies while we're here. I'm sitting, cross-legged, on an empty bed, waiting for the return trip to start.  
  


We'll see.  
  


I love you.  
Saf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well here we are! thank you if you read this far <3 i'm absolutely going to write a bonus chapter or two where divine safiya comes to the forbidden city for...diplomacy reasons but for now this fucking thing that ate up 6 months of my life is DONE!!! please leave a comment if you have thoughts!


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